-FRONTIERS- 
OF  FREEDOM 

•  NEWTON  D.  BAKER.- 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 
NEWTON  D.  BAKER 


FRONTIERS  o/FREEDOM 

BY 
NEWTON  D.  BAKER 


NEW   ^Sr   YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  191$. 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


PREFACE 

As  Mr.  Dooley  somewhere  remarks,  there  is 
a  great  difference  between  a  "Sicretary  of  War" 
and  a  "Sicretary  of  A  War." 

The  first,  to  be  sure,  is  in  days  of  peace,  the 
Superintendent  of  Public  Buildings  and  Grounds 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  the  President  of 
the  Panama  Railroad  Company;  he  is  Chairman 
of  the  National  Forest  Reservation  Commission 
and  Superintendent  of  Cleaning  and  Repairing 
the  Statue  of  Liberty;  he  is  administrator  of 
laws  relating  to  National  Cemeteries  and  over- 
seer of  bridge  construction  on  navigable  streams ; 
he  has  a  multitude  of  other  pastoral  functions 
that  have  not  the  slightest  relationship  to  the 
great  god  Mars. 

But  the  second — the  war-time  Secretary — 
fights  a  Nation's  battles;  he  hears  its  censure 
and  sometimes  its  praise;  he  is  the  subject  of 
smoking-car  debate  and  Congressional  inquiry. 
Within  the  bounds  of  No  Man's  Land,  a  people 
to-day  shut  off  from  civilization  by  the  ingrained 
iniquity  of  its  rulers,  seeks  to  fathom  his  plans 
and  measure  his  potentialities.  In  Everyman's 
W 


2047294 


COPYRIGHT,  1911. 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


PREFACE 

As  Mr.  Dooley  somewhere  remarks,  there  is 
a  great  difference  between  a  "Sicretary  of  War" 
and  a  "Sicretary  of  A  War." 

The  first,  to  be  sure,  is  in  days  of  peace,  the 
Superintendent  of  Public  Buildings  and  Grounds 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  the  President  of 
the  Panama  Railroad  Company;  he  is  Chairman 
of  the  National  Forest  Reservation  Commission 
and  Superintendent  of  Cleaning  and  Repairing 
the  Statue  of  Liberty;  he  is  administrator  of 
laws  relating  to  National  Cemeteries  and  over- 
seer of  bridge  construction  on  navigable  streams ; 
he  has  a  multitude  of  other  pastoral  functions 
that  have  not  the  slightest  relationship  to  the 
great  god  Mars. 

But  the  second — the  war-time  Secretary — 
fights  a  Nation's  battles;  he  hears  its  censure 
and  sometimes  its  praise;  he  is  the  subject  of 
smoking-car  debate  and  Congressional  inquiry. 
Within  the  bounds  of  No  Man's  Land,  a  people 
to-day  shut  off  from  civilization  by  the  ingrained 
iniquity  of  its  rulers,  seeks  to  fathom  his  plans 
and  measure  his  potentialities.  In  Everyman's 
[v] 


204729* 


PREFACE 

Land  he  reaches  into  myriad  homes ;  and  even  as 
she  wipes  away  her  farewell  tear  each  sweetheart 
and  mother  and  wife  wonders  how  he  will  care 
for  her  boy. 

What,  then,  does  he  say  and  think  while  the 
world  is  being  made  over?  What  are  the  war- 
time utterances  of  our  Secretary  of  War?  The 
record  has  been  meager.  Secretary  Baker 
speaks  always  extemporaneously ;  there  is  neither 
manuscript  nor  notes.  The  comments  here 
brought  together  had  to  be  gathered  from  more 
or  less  fragmentary  reports  recorded,  in  most 
instances,  without  his  knowledge.  Indeed,  they 
were  seen  by  him  first  when  these  pages  were 
"galleys." 

For  those  who  have  known  him  and,  knowing 
him,  have  loved  him  with  a  great  love ;  for  those 
who  have  seen  him  put  the  fine  impress  of  his 
soul  into  a  Nation's  armies ;  for  those  who  have 
watched  him,  with  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
make  this  war  not  the  military  venture  of  a  class, 
but  the  crusade  of  a  people;  for  those,  however 
humble,  who  have  been  privileged  to  work  with 
him,  who  have  seen  him  shun  the  market  places, 
and,  in  the  silent  watches,  who  have  learned  from 
his  consecration  the  greatness  of  the  Cause — for 
those,  these  chapters  need  no  apology.  For  the 
others,  these  remarks  are  put  into  this  more  per- 
manent form  not  alone  because  they  are  the 


PREFACE 

expressions — albeit  impromptu — of  the  head  of 
the  military  establishment  of  a  great  Republic, 
but  because  they  seem  to  speak  spontaneously 
the  language  of  a  liberalism  that  even,  now  is 
coming  into  its  own. 

A.  HAYES 


[vii] 


INTRODUCTION 

The  addresses  herein  printed  were  delivered 
extemporaneously  and  without  any  other  prep- 
aration than  constant  occupation  upon  the  sub- 
jects with  which  they  deal.  Because  they  are  the 
spontaneous  reflections  of  the  Secretary  of  War 
upon  the  social,  economic  and  personal  aspect 
of  war  waged  by  democracy  and  waged  for  very 
great  issues  of  right,  my  friend  and  Secretary, 
Mr.  Ralph  A.  Hayes,  deemed  me  worthy  of  so 
much  preservation  as  nowadays  falls  to  one 
book  more  upon  the  groaning  and  bulging  shelves 
of  libraries.  Just  how  he  managed  to  recover  as 
much  as  he  has  I  don't  know,  though  the  ener- 
getic gentlemen  who  write  for  the  daily  press 
have  doubtless  been  his  chief  source  of  supply;  so 
if  I  should  be  grateful  for  being  preserved,  it 
must  be  to  him  and  to  them.  If  any  of  these  ad- 
dresses appear  to  have  the  merit  of  well-chosen 
words,  I  must  modestly,  but  frankly,  give  the 
credit  again  to  Mr.  Hayes  and  to  Dr.  F.  P. 
Keppel,  who  divides  everybody's  labors  in  the 
War  Department  and  still  finds  time  to  read 
the  copies  of  proofs,  which,  as  I  wrote  this,  I 
myself  have  not  yet  been  permitted  to  see.  But 
I  hope  these  preservers  have  found  in  their 
[ix] 


INTRODUCTION 

search  the  sentences  I  have  sought  to  form  ex- 
pressive of  the  meaning  of  the  sacrifice  which 
the  world  is  now  making,  and  therefore  the  es- 
sential glory  of  it  all. 

It  would  be  an  unbearable  thing  if  this  great 
fire  were  found  to  have  no  purifying  quality.  I 
am  well  aware  that  the  theory  of  compensation 
can  be  pressed  too  far  and  that  one  has  to  take 
a  long  look  into  a  very  uncertain  and  undeter- 
mined future  even  to  imagine  a  world  recon- 
stituted upon  sufficiently  just  and  beautiful  lines 
to  compensate  for  the  agony  of  this  trial  to  the 
human  race.  And  yet  there  are  evidences  of 
reassurance  on  many  hands.  Our  country  has 
responded  to  this  call  without  passion  or  evil 
sentiment,  but  with  its  head  high  and  its  purposes 
written  on  its  heart,  as  they  have  been  wonder- 
fully formulated  into  words  by  the  President.  It 
is  not  without  significance  that,  although  we 
have  been  in  this  war  ten  months,  there  has  not 
yet  appeared  in  any  newspaper  or  magazine,  nor 
has  any  public  speaker  ever  suggested  that  we 
should  look  for  advantage  or  seek  to  balance  our 
loss  account  by  the  attainment  of  any  selfish  pur- 
pose. 

Meantime  the  people  of  our  country  have  lost 
some  sense  of  distinction  which  was  growing 
up  among  us.  The  democracy  of  the  new  mili- 
tary army  and  of  the  new  industrial  army 
is  too  large  to  be  obscured,  and  accepting  de- 
mocracy as  "a  rule  of  action  rather  than  social 

M 


INTRODUCTION 

philosophy,"  our  common  effort  in  this  great  un- 
dertaking seems  to  promise  future  common  ef- 
forts for  purposes  just  as  high  in  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  our  social  and  economic  organization. 

Some  one  has  said  that  America  will  come  out 
of  this  war  more  a  nation  than  she  has  ever 
been.  That  is  true;  no  more  an  old-fash- 
ioned nation  with  nationalistic  objects  and  dy- 
nastic ambition,  but  a  new-fashioned  nation, 
with  sounder  attitude  toward  itself.  This  new 
nation  will  have  learned  to  view  in  better  propor- 
tion the  importance  of  sound  daily  living  and  of 
community  effort,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  too  much 
to  hope  that  the  people  of  America,  in  common 
with  the  people  of  the  other  belligerent  countries, 
will  have  a  firm  and  fruitful  conviction,  when  the 
war  is  over,  that  the  glory  of  nations  does  not  lie 
in  material  things  at  all,  except  as  they  are  neces- 
sary to  condition  the  development  of  the  finest 
freedom  and  the  best  opportunities  for  spiritual 
growth  among  their  people. 

NEWTON  D.  BAKER 

WASHINGTON, 

FEBRUARY,  26,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  SINGERS  OF  SONGS 15 

First  National  Community  Song  Day,  Washington, 
December  9,  1917 

THE  TASK  or  THE  COLLEGES 22 

Gathering   of   College    Presidents,   Washington, 
May  5,  1917 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  TRADE  PUBLICATIONS      ...      31 
Conference  of  Trade  Publication  Editors,  Wash- 
ington, May  25,  1917 

ON  THE  EVENING  OF  REGISTRATION  DAY      ...      37 
Georgetown  Citizens'  Association,  Washington, 
June  5,  1917 

THE  COLLEGE  GRADUATE  IN  THE  NEW  WORLD  .     .      42 
Georgetown  University  Commencement,  Wash- 
ington, June  n,  1917 

THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  1776  AND  THE  LIBERTY  OF 

1917 •  '  •     •     •      So 

Independence  Day,  New  York 

THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  ENGINEERS 55 

Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Engineering  Educa- 
tion, Washington,  July  7,  1917 

THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AN  OFFICER  OF  THE  ARMY 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 61 

Officers'  Training  Camp,  Fort  Myer,  Virginia, 
August  13,  1917 

[xiii] 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

LABOR'S  DIGNITY  AND  ITS  DUTY 66 

Labor  Day,  Newport  News,  Virginia,  1917 

THE  MARCH  TOWARD  LIBERTY 76 

Liberty  Loan  Meeting,  Washington,  October  8, 
1917 

INVISIBLE  ARMOR 84 

War  Camp  Recreation  Conference,  Washington, 
October  23,  1917 

THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 98 

Mass  Meeting,  Cleveland,  Ohio,  October  17,  1917 

THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 116 

Tent  Meeting,  Cleveland,  Ohio,  October  17,  1917 

THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 133 

Boston  City  Club,  October  25,  1917 

THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 149 

National  Consumers'   League,  Baltimore,   Md., 
November  14,  1917 

PROBLEMS  OF  THE  MELTING  POT 162 

Convention  of  Police  Chiefs,  Washington,  Decem- 
ber 4,  1917 

HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 173 

State  Council  of  Defense,  Richmond,  Virginia, 
December  5,  1917 

THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 189 

New  York  Southern  Society,  December  12,  1917 

THE  NEW  FREEDOM  AND  THE  NEWER  DEMOCRACY  .     204 
Woman  Suffrage  Association,  Washington,  Decem- 
ber 14,  1917 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THRICE-ARMED  AMERICA 218 

Chautauqua  Representatives,  Washington,  Janu- 
ary 2,  1918 

EXPRESSION  VERSUS  SUPPRESSION 225 

National  Social  Hygiene  Association,  Washington, 
D.C.,  January  31,  1918 

WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR    ....     237 
Before  the  Senate  Military  Affairs  Committee, 
January  28,  1918 

WITH  THE  AMERICAN  EXPEDITIONARY  FORCES  IN 

FRANCE ...     .     .     328 

To  the  Engineers,  March  14,  1918 

To  the  Officers  of  the  General  Staff,  March  18, 1918 

To  the  Rainbow  Division,  March  20,  1918 


[xv] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 


FRONTIERS   OF 
FREEDOM 

THE  SINGERS  OF  SONGS 

Our  adversary  began  a  -war  upon  mankind  with  a  song 
of  hate.  It  came  like  a  childish,  impotent  expression  of 
feeble  purpose,  but  it  blistered  the  souls  of  people  who 
sang  it.  We  made  another  choice.  We  sing  no  songs  of 
conquest;  we  sing  the  songs  that  express  our  love  of 
country,  that  daily  lead  us  to  justice;  we  sing  the  songs 
of  charity  and  helpfulness. 

When  this  war  is  over  I  can  imagine  that  upon  many  a 
hillside  in  France,  in  Italy,  in  Great  Britain,  upon  a  sum- 
mer's evening,  there  will  be  heard  full-throated  from  the 
hearts  of  the  people  of  those  countries,  America's  pa- 
triotic songs  being  sung  in  memory  of  these  days  of  glori- 
ous cooperation. 

FIRST  NATIONAL  COMMUNITY  SONG  DAY, 
WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER  9,  1917. 

ANDREW   FLETCHER,   I   think   it  was, 
wrote  that  he  once  knew  a  very  wise  man 
who  said  that  if  he  might  write  the  ballads  of  his 
people  he  cared  not  who  wrote  their  laws.     And 
if  we  examine  the  history  of  people  we  find  their 
most  impressive  moods  as  well  as  their  heroic 
deeds  preserved  to  national  memory  by  having 
been  recorded  in  song.     I  need  perhaps  to  refer 
[15] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

to  but  one  as  an  illustration.  I  do  not  know 
whether  history  records  it  but  I  imagine  that  the 
song  of  Deborah  was  sung  by  the  people  of  Israel 
until  the  days  of  the  Maccabees,  for  it  embodied 
the  highest  inspiration,  not  only  of  the  military 
and  moral  ideals  of  a  great  people ;  it  was  the  top 
pitch  of  their  national  enthusiasm. 

In  our  ordinary  daily  life  the  spur  of  competi- 
tion is  enough  to  stir  individuals  to  effort  and  the 
best  that  each  individual  can  bring  forth  under 
the  influence  of  that  spirit  seems  to  have  been 
productive  of  the  highest  development  of  our  civ- 
ilization. But  sometimes  we  come  to  a  place 
where  everybody  must  sink  his  own  personality, 
must  stop  competitive  strife,  and  must  subordi- 
nate the  personal  purpose  to  the  common  pur- 
pose, where  the  individual  success  of  any  one 
must  be  forgotten  in  the  common  good  of  all, 
and  then  we  have  what  in  music  is  called  the 
chorus.  It  is  only  when  each  singer  in  the  chorus 
sings  his  or  her  part  in  due  subordination  to  the 
artistic  whole,  it  is  only  when  we  have  perfect 
cooperation  and  perfect  self-forgetfulness  on  the 
part  of  the  singer,  that  we  have  complete  har- 
mony. So  it  is  in  national  effort  of  this  kind. 
We  are  no  longer  at  the  place  where  we  are  free 
to  pursue  our  little  personal  and  selfish  aims. 
There  may  be  some  of  us  who  are  not  making 
direct  personal  contribution  of  sons,  husbands, 
brothers,  in  the  armed  forces  of  the  Nation,  but 
there  are  none  of  us  who  are  not  having  our 
[16] 


THE  SINGERS  OF  SONGS 

hearts  subjected  to  the  same  draft  as  our  neigh- 
bors' hearts,  and  when  a  soldier  goes  to  the  front, 
whether  he  is  my  brother  or  son  or  not,  my  heart 
goes  out  with  him.  Men  we  never  heard  of,  men 
whose  families  we  have  never  known,  may  be- 
come in  these  moments  of  consecrated  self-sacri- 
fice our  heroes. 

There  is  a  process  of  affectionate  adoption  go- 
ing on  throughout  the  whole  body  of  the  people; 
there  is  a  call  upon  us ;  we  are  rendered  incapable 
of  little  and  petty  and  selfish  and  separate  influ- 
ences and  interests;  and  all  that  constituted  the 
support  of  our  daily  life  is  submerged  now  under 
the  spur  of  a  national  purpose  inspired  by  a  na- 
tional idea.  One  of  the  great  goods  of  war 
perhaps  is  that  it  enables  people  to  discover  in 
themselves  unsuspected  capacities;  it  enables  us 
to  bring  to  the  surface  latent  superiorities  of 
which  we  had  no  previous  knowledge.  Some- 
how or  another,  in  the  fiery  trial  of  war,  one 
who  was  not  regarded  as  promising  develops 
into  a  great,  self-sacrificing,  real  representative 
of  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  Nation.  And  nations 
are  like  people.  We  toddle  along  in  our  infancy 
as  a  nation  and  cultivate  grain  in  order  to  live; 
and  after  a  while  we  begin  to  lay  down  our  law; 
and  then  awakening  to  the  full  strength  of  our 
capacity,  we  apply  steam  and  electricity  to  me- 
chanical arts.  Then  war  comes — great  war 
against  a  great  adversary ;  and  when  ships  begin 
to  leave  for  France  and  carry  that  new  Army  of 
[17] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

ours,  it  is  only  then  that  we  see,  as  it  were,  rising 
out  of  the  sea,  the  very  soul  of  the  nation  itself. 

Songs  are  used  for  different  things.  Our  ad- 
versary began  a  war  upon  mankind  with  a  song 
of  hate.  It  came  like  a  childish,  impotent  ex- 
pression of  feeble  purpose,  but  it  blistered  the 
souls  of  people  who  sang  it.  We  have  chosen 
otherwise.  We  are  singing  no  song  of  conquest, 
we  are  singing  the  songs  that  express  our  love 
of  our  own  country,  we  are  singing  the  hymns 
that  daily  lead  us  to  justice,  we  are  singing  the 
songs  of  charity  and  helpfulness.  We  have  done 
what  we  have  with  a  proper  and  helpful  devel- 
opment of  those  powers  which  the  Almighty  has 
granted  us. 

I  remember  that  I  once  heard  (these  things 
come  back  like  pages  from  a  scrap-book)  how 
some  ancient  king  planned  to  send  his  army 
against  an  adversary,  and  in  advance  he  sent  an 
ambassador  or  messenger;  and  the  ambassador 
came  back  and  said : — "Your  majesty,  those  peo- 
ple cannot  be  overcome !  They  sing  as  they  fight." 
Our  Army  in  France  will  sing  because  of  the  help- 
fulness of  song.  There  are  emotions  which  find 
no  other  mode  of  expression.  They  will  sing  be- 
cause their  cause  is  just  and  they  know  it.  They 
will  sing  because  they  are  sons  of  a  free  people ; 
they  will  sing  because  in  their  own  land  doctrines 
devised  long  ago  have  proved  so  fruitful  and 
fructifying  that  they  have  spread  a  benign  in- 
[18] 


THE  SINGERS  OF  SONGS 

fluence  over  the  whole  world  and  are  an  en- 
lightenment to  people  everywhere.  They  will  sing 
because  victory  must  come  to  men  who  represent 
such  a  cause,  and  we  at  home  will  sing  meantime 
with  all  the  confidence  and  pride  that  people  can 
have  in  our  Army.  We  know  that  whatever  the 
struggle  and  whatever  the  cost,  they  will  come 
back  to  us  with  the  fruits  of  victory  and  that 
when  we  reach  out  and  pick  those  fruits,  they 
will  not  wither  in  our  hands  as  things  we  ought 
not  to  have,  but  they  will  be  for  a  higher  life  and 
better  uses  for  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men 
everywhere. 

Every  now  and  then  in  the  great  movements 
of  the  world's  affairs,  we  discover  evidences  of 
design  and  plan  almost  like  the  last  act  of  a  tan- 
gled and  intricate  play.  Sometimes  in  a  novel, 
in  the  first  chapter,  a  mysterious  figure  seems  to 
be  present  and  when  the  final  evolution  of  the 
thing  comes  about  and  all  of  the  complications 
are  to  be  swept  away,  this  mysterious  character 
appears  in  the  center  of  the  stage,  and  we  see  the 
hero.  In  1776  a  Republic  was  established  over 
here.  There  never  had  been  such  a  one  before, 
— it  was  like  the  mysterious  character  in  the 
story, — separated  by  miles  of  ocean  from  the 
civilized  portion  of  the  world;  and  after  a  while 
things  came  to  be  invented,  newspapers,  cables 
and  wireless,  which  served  to  make  closer  ties  be- 
tween the  old  and  new  worlds,  and  still  there 
seemed  to  be  no  explanation  for  this  first  charac- 

[19] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

ter  that  appeared.  Now  we  are  at  the  end  of  the 
book,  and  the  explanation  is  manifest, — the  peo- 
ples of  Europe  who  have  a  situation  which  is 
truly  admirable,  which  is  built  upon  justice,  upon 
respect  for  traditions,  upon  considerations  of  re- 
spect for  humanity,  those  peoples  have  been  at 
death  grips  with  the  adversary,  the  enemy  of 
all  that  is  just  and  humane.  And  now  comes  the 
character  from  the  first  chapter  of  the  book,  the 
Republic  established  in  1776,  to  join  the  strength 
of  this  young  giant  with  the  vigor  of  a  splendid 
spirit,  to  bring  the  inexhaustible  materials  of  our 
great  continent,  to  bring  the  splendid  spiritual 
love  of  liberty,  in  order  that  this  volume  of  the 
book  of  the  world  will  close  with  the  mystery  ex- 
plained, the  trouble  settled,  the  problem  solved, 
and  a  reign  of  justice  inaugurated. 

We  sing  songs  in  many  languages,  but  all  of 
them  on  the  same  theme.  When  this  war  is 
over,  I  can  imagine  that  upon  many  a  hillside  in 
France,  in  Italy,  in  Great  Britain,  upon  a  sum- 
mer's evening,  there  will  be  heard  full-throated 
from  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  those  countries 
America's  patriotic  songs  sung  in  memory  of 
these  days  of  glorious  cooperation.  When  our 
boys  come  back  from  France  and  have  ac- 
complished the  mission  which  they  are  to  accom- 
plish there,  our  schools,  our  choral  societies,  will 
sing,  not  as  an  exhibition  of  a  type  of  music,  but 
as  expressive  of  a  great  experience,  patriotic 
[20] 


THE  SINGERS  OF  SONGS 

songs  of  these  countries  with  which  we  are  now 
allied. 

I  trust  that  this  movement  for  a  widespread 
growth  of  the  spirit  of  song  will  meet  with  in- 
creasing success  and  that  the  songs  sung  will  be 
worthy  of  this  people  who  in  their  hours  ef 
preparation  are  already  so  splendid  and  in  their 
cooperation  abroad  will  furnish  an  incomparable 
demonstration  of  the  truth  of  that  maxim  that 
in  war  morale  is  to  force  as  three  to  one. 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COLLEGES 

We  are  in  a  great  enterprise.  The  world  must  have 
peace.  We  have  discovered,  at  the  end  of  a  long  and 
patient  experience,  that  the  wo.'ld  can  not  be  rescued 
from  destruction  and  slaughter  except  by^  the  major  exer- 
cise of  the  martial  forces  of  this  Republic. 

GATHERING  OF  COLLEGE  PRESIDENTS,  CONTI- 
NENTAL HALL,  WASHINGTON,  MAY  5,  1917. 

THE  War  Department  is  especially  anxious 
not  to  disturb  unduly  the  educational  sys- 
tems of  the  country.  I  have  had  within  the  last 
two  or  three  weeks  a  very  large  number  of  more 
or  less  intricate  and  difficult  questions  arising  in 
the  colleges,  and  no  doubt  each  of  you  has  had 
to  face  those  questions  probably  in  more  acute 
form  than  I.  When  the  call  to  national  service 
arose,  spirited  young  men  everywhere  of  course 
wanted  to  be  employed  in  a  patriotic  way,  and  I 
suppose  there  is  scarcely  a  boy  in  any  college  in 
the  country  who  has  not  very  anxiously  addressed 
to  himself  the  question:  "What  can  I  do?"  A 
number  of  college  presidents  have  done  me  the 
honor  of  asking  me  the  answer  to  that  ques- 
tion, and  I  have  had  to  confess  each  time 
that  I  thought  there  was  no  general  answer ;  that 
[22] 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COLLEGES 

even  in  those  cases  where  it  would  be  obviously 
better  for  a  boy  to  stay  at  college  and  prepare 
for  later  and  fuller  usefulness,  if  the  boy  in  so 
doing  acquired  a  low  view  of  his  own  courage 
and  felt  that  he  was  electing  the  less  worthy 
course,  the  effect  on  the  boy  himself  of  that  state 
of  mind  probably  was  so  prejudicial  that  it  ought 
not  to  be  encouraged. 

I  think  this,  though,  is  more  or  less  clear  to 
those  of  us  who  look  at  it  from  the  outside :  First, 
that  the  country  needs  officers.  There  is  no 
preference  of  college  men  for  officers,  but  be- 
cause a  man  has  had  academic  opportunities  he 
has  to  start  with,  presumptively  at  least,  a  better 
foundation  upon  which  to  build  the  learning 
which  an  officer  must  have;  and  therefore  to  a 
very  substantial  extent  the  country  desires  its 
college  graduates  and  its  college-bred  men  of 
suitable  age  in  the  training  camps  in  order  that 
they  may  be  rapidly  matured  into  officers  and 
used  in  the  training  of  the  new  forces. 

To  the  extent  that  the  men  in  college  are  phys- 
ically disqualified,  or  to  the  extent  that  they  are 
too  young  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  De- 
partment, it  seems  quite  clear  that  in  the  present 
state  of  the  emergency  their  major  usefulness 
lies  in  remaining  in  the  college,  going  forward 
with  their  academic  work;  and  the  colleges  can, 
I  think,  lend  some  color  of  patriotic  endeavor  to 
their  so  doing  by  such  simple  modifications  of 
their  courses  and  curricula  as  will  show  the  boys 
[23] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

who  stay  that  they  are  being  directly  equipped 
for  subsequent  usefulness  if  the  emergency  lasts 
until  their  call  comes. 

A  number  of  questions  have  arisen  with  regard 
to  the  possibility  of  the  establishment  of  junior 
training  camp  or  training  corps  divisions  in  col- 
leges. Pretty  nearly  every  college  in  this  coun- 
try, when  the  national  emergency  arose,  applied 
for  training  camp  or  training  corps  facilities.  In 
some,  such  corps  had  already  been  established; 
and  there  was  an  immediate  and  so  far  as  I  know 
an  almost  unanimous  demand  on  the  part  of  the 
colleges  of  the  country  in  which  such  corps  had 
not  been  established  for  their  establishment. 
That  presented  to  the  War  Department  several 
difficult  problems  which  we  have  undertaken  to 
solve,  and  I  trust  we  have  solved  them  wisely, 
though  nobody  could  be  more  sensible  than  I  am 
that  our  solution  has  not  been  satisfactory  in  all 
instances. 

The  problem  presented  by  those  applications 
was  this:  That  we  are  not  now  dealing  with  an 
Army  of  two  or  three  hundred  thousand  men. 
We  are  about  to  deal  with  an  Army  of  a  million 
and  a  half  men ;  and  the  mills  and  manufactories 
in  this  country  which  are  equipped  and  expe- 
rienced in  making  army  supplies  and  equipment 
are  too  few  to  turn  out  the  supplies  necessary  for 
this  larger  force. 

We  therefore  have  this  added  burden — that  in- 
stead of  going  out  into  a  customary  market  to 
[24] 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COLLEGES 

buy  usual  supplies,  we  must  go  into  an  unfamiliar 
market,  go  clear  back  to  the  raw  material  in  all 
likelihood,  and  persuade  persons,  who  have  not 
hitherto  manufactured  the  sort  of  things  we  de- 
sire to  have,  to  divert  their  energies  from  their 
normal  domestic  production  into  the  production 
necessary  for  the  War  Department.  That  of 
course  presented  to  us  the  problem  of  where  we 
are  going  to  get  the  necessary  equipment  of  uni- 
forms, clothing,  and  other  sorts  of  supplies 
which  this  large  Army  will  need;  and  it  necessi- 
tates a  very  parsimonious  and  husbanding  treat- 
ment of  such  supplies  as  we  have  or  which  are 
in  immediate  prospect. 

Therefore,  on  that  ground,  it  seems  wise  not  to 
encourage  the  present  formation  of  junior  corps 
which  would  be  outside  of  the  emergency  forces 
which  it  is  our  first  duty  to  provide  and  equip, 
because  equipping  such  junior  corps  would  to 
that  extent  delay  and  diminish  the  quantity  of 
supplies  and  equipment  available  to  the  actual 
forces  which  are  first  to  go  into  training. 

The  second  aspect  of  this  matter  is  with  re- 
gard to  officers  for  training  purposes.  We  need 
something  like  20,000  additional  officers  for  the 
training  of  the  first  increment  of  500,000  men  to 
be  secured  under  the  selective  process.  The 
training  camps,  it  is  hoped,  will  give  us  a  very 
substantial  number  of  those.  Additional  offi- 
cers' training  camps  later  on  may  be  necessary 
so  that  we  can  secure  enough  officers.  It  must  be 
[25] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

an  exceedingly  intensive  process ;  in  other  words, 
there  must  be  a  very  great  deal  of  individual  at- 
tention paid  to  these  young  men  who  in  three 
months  are  to  acquire  what  ordinarily  three 
years  is  none  too  much  to  acquire  well ;  and  there- 
fore the  Army  is  going,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
to  model  its  treatment  of  the  problem  upon  the 
tutorial  system  with  which  colleges  are  so  fa- 
miliar, and,  as  far  as  it  can,  give  individual 
treatment  to  the  young  men  in  these  training 
corps.  That  will  necessitate  a  very  rigid  devo- 
tion of  the  officers  available  for  training  pur- 
poses to  these  training  camps,  and  makes  it  im- 
possible for  us  to  disperse  our  officer  talent  and 
energy  by  the  establishment  of  these  junior  corps 
widespread  over  the  country,  since  these  camps 
would,  of  course,  require  competent  officers  to 
make  them  succeed. 

It  was  then  suggested  that  there  perhaps 
might  be  a  few  such  junior  camps  established  at 
certain  places,  and  that  the  college  men  from 
other  colleges  might  be  centered  into  a  few  col- 
leges— one,  perhaps,  in  each  training  district — 
and  taught  in  those  places  without  too  great  a 
draft  upon  our  officer  training  material.  I  discov- 
ered that  the  effect  of  such  a  process  would 
be  to  draft  off,  from  all  of  the  colleges  at  which 
such  corps  were  not  established,  their  students 
into  the  colleges  where  such  corps  were 
established;  and  the  effect  of  that  seems  to  me 
to  threaten  a  very  profound  disorganization  of 
[26] 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COLLEGES 

the  entire  academic  system  of  the  country.  It 
seems  to  me  that  if  there  were  forty  colleges  in 
a  district,  and  at  only  one  of  those  colleges  was 
military  training  available,  the  other  thirty-nine 
would  find  themselves,  temporarily  at  any  rate, 
losing  a  great  part  of  their  student  body.  The  boys 
would  all  want  to  go  to  the  one  at  which  this  in- 
struction was  possible,  and  then  perhaps  forming 
friendships  and  alliances  there,  being  imbued  with 
the  military  spirit,  they  would  return  reluctantly 
if  at  all  to  the  colleges  of  their  normal  affilia- 
tion; and  so  it  seemed  to  me  that  such  a  plan 
might  prove  to  be  destructive  of  the  repose  which 
it  is  everybody's  desire  to  keep  as  far  as  possible 
in  the  common  life  of  the  country  during  this 
time  of  emergency. 

The  policy  of  the  Department,  therefore,  has 
been  to  maintain  such  corps  in  tho_e  colleges 
where  they  have  been  established  prior  to  this 
emergency,  but  only  so  long  as  the  officers  there 
detailed  can  be  spared  from  the  more  important 
duty  of  training  the  actual  forces  which  are  being 
fitted  for  actual  service. 

In  a  democracy,  the  calling  together  of  the 
forces  of  the  Nation  for  so  unfamiliar  a  task  as 
war  necessarily  produces  a  profound  dislocation 
of  practically  every  art  and  every  association 
which  in  normal  times  is  characteristic  of  the 
Nation's  life.  The  college  presidents,  people  who 
are  connected  with  the  institutions  of  higher 
learning,  have  a  peculiar  opportunity  to  exercise 
[27] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

a  steadying  and  restraining  influence.  I  think 
we  ought  all  to  adopt  as  the  daily  maxim  of 
our  talk  and  our  activity  that  the  country  shall 
make  every  sacrifice  necessary,  shall  break  up 
every  alliance,  if  necessary,  to  bring  our  force 
to  bear  in  the  most  effective  way ;  but  at  the  same 
time  I  think  that  we  ought  to  preserve  the  country 
for  the  common  good  against  every  unnecessary 
dislocation  and  against  every  unnecessary  abridg- 
ment of  the  processes  of  our  common  life. 

I  do  not  know  any  source  from  which  that 
sort  of  cool,  helpful  thinking  can  emanate  with 
as  much  effect  as  from  the  college  presidents  of 
this  country.  We  do  not  want  to  chill  enthu- 
siasm. We  want  to  preserve  enthusiasm  and  cul- 
tivate it  and  use  it ;  but  we  do  want  to  be  discrim- 
inatingin  our  enthusiasm,  and  prevent  people  from 
getting  th^  notion  that  they  are  not  helping  the 
country  unless  they  do  something  different,  which 
very  often  is  not  the  case  at  all.  The  largest 
usefulness  may  come  from  doing  the  same  thing 
— just  continuing  to  do  it.  Now,  it  is  not  un- 
natural that  there  should  be  these  ebullitions  of 
feeling,  this  desire  to  change  occupation  as  a 
badge  of  changed  service  and  devotion  to  ideals ; 
but  you  gentlemen  can  exercise  a  very  steadying 
influence  in  that  regard. 

One  other  thought :  I  believe  everybody  in  this 

country  has  been  delighted  at  the  freedom  of 

our  country  from  ill-considered  and  impulsive 

action  in  connection  with  this  great  undertaking. 

[28] 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COLLEGES 

I  think  everybody  in  this  country  has  been  pleased 
at  the  good  feeling  which  our  people  have  main- 
tained toward  one  another,  the  freedom  of  the 
country  from  internal  disturbance  and  embit- 
tered difference  of  opinion.  I  hope  that  will 
continue;  I  think  it  will  continue;  and  yet  in  a 
country  made  up  as  ours  is,  it  is  very  easy  to 
imagine  difficulty  arising  from  an  indiscretion 
or  from  an  over-zealous  state  of  mind.  I  can 
easily  imagine  a  man  whose  affiliations,  for  in- 
stance, would  be  with  a  German  ancestry  and 
German  traditions,  making  an  indiscreet  remark 
and  arousing  a  very  great  deal  of  resentment, 
and  following  this  a  heady  community  impulse 
not  only  against  him  and  his  remark,  but  gen- 
eralized against  all  persons  who  bore  the  same 
kind  of  name  or  the  same  sort  of  traditional 
affiliation.  And  I  can  easily  imagine  a  com- 
munity getting  itself  worked  up  into  a  pretty 
feverish  state  of  opinion,  and  feeling  that  it  ought 
to  resent  as  disloyal  what  was  perhaps  only  a 
thoughtless  and  unmeant  indiscretion. 

Now,  we  are  at  the  beginning  of  this.  We  are 
going  to  have  losses  on  the  sea;  we  are  going  to 
have  losses  in  battle;  our  communities  are  going 
to  be  subjected  to  the  rigid  discipline  of  multi- 
plied personal  griefs  scattered  all  through  the 
community,  and  we  are  going  to  search  the  cause 
of  those  back  to  their  foundation,  and  our  feel- 
ings are  going  to  be  torn  and  our  nerves  made 
raw.  This  is  the  time  for  physicians  of  public 
ftfrl 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

opinion  to  exercise  a  curative  impulse.  You 
gentlemen  and  the  young  men  who  are  in  your 
colleges,  who  go  to  their  homes  from  your  col- 
leges and  write  to  their  homes  from  your  col- 
leges, making  up  thus  a  very  large  part  of  the  di- 
rection of  public  opinion,  you  can  exercise  a  cura- 
tive influence  by  preaching  the  doctrine  of  toler- 
ance, by  exemplifying  the  fact  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary for  a  nation  like  the  United  States,  which  is 
fighting  for  the  vindication  of  a  great  ideal,  to 
discolor  its  purpose  by  hatreds  or  by  the  enter- 
tainment of  any  unworthy  emotion. 

We  are  in  a  great  enterprise,  gentlemen.  The 
world  must  have  peace.  The  destruction  of  life 
and  property  which  is  now  going  on  in  the  world 
is  intolerable.  We  have  at  the  end  of  a  long  and 
patient  experience  discovered  that  the  world 
cannot  be  rescued  from  slaughter  and  destruc- 
tion by  any  other  process  than  a  major  exercise 
of  the  great  martial  force  of  this  Republic;  but 
we  ought  never  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
purpose  of  this  war  is  not  aggression,  is  not 
punishment;  it  is  not  inspired  by  resentments 
nor  fed  by  ambitions,  but  it  is  loyalty  to  an  ideal, 
and  that  ideal  is  freeing  the  world  from  an  im- 
possible international  philosophy,  a  philosophy 
in  which,  if  it  should  prevail,  no  freedom  is  left 
or  is  safe. 


[30] 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  TRADE  PUBLICA- 
TIONS 

A  declaration  of  war  is  always  a  declaration  of  an 
open  season  for  critics;  and  that  is  rather  fortunate. 

CONFERENCE  OF  TRADE  PUBLICATION  EDITORS, 
WASHINGTON,  MAY  25,  1917. 

WE  have  devoted  an  enormous  part  of  the 
intellectual  energy  and  the  physical 
strength  of  mankind  to  the  conquest  of  the  forces 
and  the  resources  of  nature.  We  have  reached 
literally  into  the  clouds  and  captured  the  great- 
est servant  mankind  ever  had  and  brought  him 
down  and  turned  him  to  driving  our  dynamos. 
We  have  reached  down  into  the  very  center  of 
the  earth  and  taken  up  portions  of  the  earth  it- 
self, and,  by  processes  which  alchemy  would  have 
regarded  as  miraculous,  have  used  the  bony 
structure  of  the  earth  as  a  fuel  for  the  produc- 
tion of  energy  to  serve  us  in  physical  ways.  We 
have  taken  the  brain  of  man  and  put  it  on  the 
anvil  of  invention  and  brought  out  all  manner 
of  physical  and  mechanical  contrivances,  inven- 
tions, aids,  and  appliances,  easing  the  burden  of 
doing  the  physical  work  of  the  world.  And  yet, 
in  the  very  nature  of  that  process  of  consuming 
[31] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

the  earth  and  converting  it  into  new  forms  and 
agencies  for  service  and  helpfulness,  the  ques- 
tion is  not  improper  as  to  whether  we  have  not 
created  a  bigger  servant  than  we  can  manage. 

I  imagine  that  the  inspiration  of  the  impossi- 
ble political  philosophy  which  at  present  seems 
to  govern  our  adversary  is  born  of  industrialism. 
I  suspect  that  the  motive  of  the  pan-German 
movement,  the  Berlin-Bagdad  movement, — I  sus- 
pect that  practically  all  of  the  major  things  that 
have  been  involved  in  that  diplomacy  of  Middle 
Europe  for  the  past  twenty-five  or  thirty  years 
are  based  upon  industrial  aspirations  and  ambi- 
tions, and  if  we  look  at  it  with  perfect  calmness, 
I  think  we  can  say,  in  an  uncritical  or  at  least 
in  an  unblaming  spirit,  that  the  German  ruling 
mind  has  become  so  obsessed  with  the  grandeur 
of  industrial  supremacy  that  it  has  completely 
lost  sense  of  the  existence  of  moral  standards. 

You  and  I  know  many  Germans.  Many  of 
them  have  been  our  personal  acquaintances  and 
our  friends,  and  a  more  gentle  and  more  neigh- 
borly and  more  kindly  and  orderly  set  of  ac- 
quaintances none  of  us  ever  had.  It  is  not  in 
their  nature  to  spread  poisoned  candy  and  to 
poison  wells,  and  to  commit  assassinations  as  a 
process  of  war  upon  the  sea;  it  is  no  more  a  part 
of  their  nature  than  of  anybody's  else  to  resort 
to  barbarity ;  but  when  the  great  obsession  comes, 
after  the  nervous  energies  of  a  people  have  been 
devoted  for  a  continuous  number  of  years  to  the 
[32] 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  TRADE  PUBLICATIONS 

idea  of  mechanical  and  industrial  supremacy, 
and  the  moral  balance  has  been  lost  or  withdrawn, 
then  such  results  as  we  now  see  come  to  pass. 

Now,  why  is  that?  It  is  because  war  has  be- 
come a  thing  of  industry  and  commerce  and  busi- 
ness. It  is  no  longer  Samson  with  his  shield  and 
spear  and  sword,  and  David  with  his  sling;  it  is 
no  longer  selected  parties  representing  nations 
as  champions,  and  in  physical  conflict  one  with 
the  other;  but  it  is  the  conflict  of  smokestacks 
now,  it  is  the  combat  of  the  driving  wheel  and 
of  the  engine,  and  the  nation  or  group  of  nations 
in  a  modern  war  which  is  to  prevail  is  the  one 
which  will  best  be  able  to  coordinate  and  mar- 
shal its  material,  industrial,  and  commercial 
strength  against  the  combination  which  may  be 
opposed  to  it. 

The  very  skies  are  filled  with  warriors,  and  the 
underseas  as  well.  No  small  part  of  the  me- 
chanical progress  which  has  been  made  by  man- 
kind has  been  drafted  into  the  making  of  what 
is  called  the  lethal  weapon  of  war,  and  here  in 
Washington  we  are  undertaking  now  to  marshal 
the  genius  and  the  vitality  and  the  courage  of  a 
great  peace-loving  people,  in  order  that  they  may 
throw  their  preponderating  weight  as  a  unit  upon 
the  scales  and  so  rescue  peace  for  the  world. 

We  start  into  this  war  as  the  evangels  of 

peace;  we  are  mobilizing  the  industry  and  the 

resources  of  the  United  States  in  order  that  they 

may  secure  peace  for  the  world.    Every  conflict 

[33] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

we  have  among  ourselves,  every  dissent  which 
we  allow  to  be  pressed  beyond  the  point  of  that 
expression  of  opinion  which  is  necessary  to  se- 
cure wisdom,  every  division  which  we  allow 
among  ourselves,  delays  the  achievement  of  the 
great  object  of  this  war,  and  it  is  for  that  reason 
that  I  address  to  you,  as  editors,  these  precau- 
tionary remarks.  It  is  not  possible  to  take  the 
industrial,  commercial,  agricultural,  and  social 
life  of  a  nation  of  110,000,000  people  and  divert 
them  out  of  their  normal  courses  without  creat- 
ing here  and  there  confusion  and  without  break- 
ing in  upon  the  long-established  and  deeply  cher- 
ished habits  of  great  numbers  of  men. 

The  greatest  asset  we  have  is  our  habits;  it 
makes  unnecessary  separate  reasoning  operations 
for  a  great  variety  of  things  which  we  are  com- 
pelled to  do  daily,  and  it  is  not  until  we  have  con- 
verted an  operation  into  a  habit  that  it  becomes 
an  asset.  Now,  in  this  mobilization  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  we  are  going  to  jar  their 
habits.  Business  houses  are  not  going  to  be  able 
to  do  as  they  used  to  do,  in  many  ways ;  workers 
in  industrial  establishments,  farmers  who  are 
tilling  their  fields,  everybody  is  going  to  be  asked 
to  give  up,  or  at  least  to  permit  the  temporary 
obstruction  of  some  of  these  deeply  embedded 
habitual  modes  of  action  and  thought,  and,  as  a 
consequence,  we  are  all  going  to  be  in  a  more  or 
less  disturbed  state  of  mind.  Things  are  not  going 
to  be  as  they  usually  are,  and  our  minds  are  go- 
[34] 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  TRADE  PUBLICATIONS 

ing  to  be  filled  with  questions  as  to  whether  the 
things  which  are  in  an  unusual  state  are  in  a 
right  or  a  profitable  state. 

You,  gentlemen,  are  going  to  meet  that  in  the 
trades  which  your  journals  address.  Some  of 
the  reorganizations  and  readjustments  in  those 
trades  are  going  to  be  quite  fundamental  and 
profound,  and  the  disturbance  of  the  line  of 
habit  and  normal  business  is  going  to  be  exceed- 
ingly marked  and  difficult  of  rapid  adjustment. 
Now,  if  your  journals,  catching  the  spirit  of  the 
community  of  enterprise,  will  preach  to  those 
who  read  your  papers  and  who  are  influenced  by 
them,  and  whose  modes  of  thought  are  con- 
trolled by  them — if  you  will  preach  to  them  the 
constant  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  the  sacri- 
fice of  habit,  in  order  that  there  may  be  com- 
munity of  enterprise  in  this  new  undertaking,  if 
you  will  just  take  the  trouble  to  analyze  the  creak- 
ing which  the  machine  develops  in  the  process 
of  readjustment,  and  point  out  in  a  large  view 
how  necessary  it  is  that  these  things  should  be, 
if  you  will  calm  the  apprehensions  and  spur  the 
courage  and  determination  of  your  clientele,  you 
will  have  it  in  your  power  to  make  a  contribu- 
tion to  this  aggregation  of  our  industrial  and 
other  resources  in  a  common  cause  which  will 
be  second  to  no  contribution  made  by  any  group 
in  the  country. 

I  am  not  asking  you  to  forbear  criticism.  A 
declaration  of  war  is  always  a  declaration  of  an 
[35] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

open  season  for  critics,  and  that  is  rather  for- 
tunate. There  are  no  perfect  people,  and  all  of 
us  who  are  imperfect  are  anxious  to  have  our 
imperfections  called  to  our  attention,  so  that  we 
can  be  more  on  guard  against  them,  and  people 
who  are  exceedingly  busy  about  great  tasks  are 
quite  likely  to  allow  their  natural  imperfections 
to  run  away  with  them,  while  they  are  absorbed 
about  other  things,  so  that  criticism  is  helpful. 
But  make  it  constructive.  There  is  a  man  in  my 
country  from  whom  I  learned  more  than  from 
any  man  I  ever  knew,  I  think.  He  bought  a 
house  in  the  country,  and  decided  that  it  needed 
a  new  roof.  It  was  a  very  humble  place,  and  as 
soon  as  he  decided  that  the  existing  roof  would 
not  do  he  got  a  ladder  and  got  up  on  the  roof 
and  tore  it  all  off;  and  when  he  got  down  to  the 
bottom  of  the  ladder  he  realized  that  he  had  not 
yet  thought  of  buying  a  new  set  of  shingles,  and 
it  was  a  long  time  before  he  could  either  get  the 
money  together  or  get  his  friends  to  bring  the 
new  shingles  out  to  him,  and  in  that  time  the 
rains  came  and  the  winds  blew,  and  every  make- 
shift device  that  he  could  provide  did  not  keep  him 
from  catching  cold  and  ultimately  dying  from 
exposure.  Make  your  criticism  helpful  and  con- 
structive ;  point  out  the  right  way  when  you  dis- 
cover that  anything  is  being  done  wrong,  and 
do  not  spare  us  who  are  here  charged  with  re- 
sponsibility, if,  after  you  have  pointed  out  the 
right  way,  we  persist  in  continuing  in  the  wrong. 
[36] 


ON  THE  EVENING  OF  REGISTRATION 
DAY 

Men  have  stood  in  the  market-place  and  beaten  the 
drum  and  played  the  fife;  and  men  have  gone  out  to  fight 
for  causes  that  were  less  high  than  this.  By  the  rotation 
of  events  and  the  irresistible  logic  of  righteousness,  which 
summons  every  brave  arm  to  the  right  side  of  the  cause, 
the  United  States  has  entered  this  war,  and  it  will  never 
turn  back  until  it  has  given  peace  to  the  world. 

GEORGETOWN  CITIZENS'  ASSOCIATION,  MONTROSE 

PARK,  GEORGETOWN,  REGISTRATION  DAY, 

JUNE  5,  1917. 

AS  I  sat  here  on  the  platform  for  the  few 
minutes  before  this  meeting  opened,  look- 
ing at  this  beautiful  park  with  its  fine  old  trees, 
and  saw  the  setting  sun  and  heard  the  laughter 
of  children,  there  arose  inevitably  in  my  mind  a 
sense  of  the  profound  and  almost  indescribable 
contrast  between  this  and  any  other  country  in 
the  world. 

Our  life  is  full  and  rich  and  varied.  Our  old 
and  young  alike  have  had  a  full  life.  If  we  se- 
lect any  other  country  in  the  world  to  draw  our 
contrast  from,  words  fail  us.  One  might  draw 
a  sad  picture  of  Poland,  of  Rumania  or  Belgium 
or  Serbia — countries  in  which  boys  the  size  of  our 
[37] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

boy  scouts  are  called  upon  to  bear  arms — but  it 
would  not  give  the  whole  truth.  I  saw  a  picture 
a  day  or  two  ago  of  a  child  in  the  Serbian  Army 
at  the  end  of  a  lo-mile  walk  carrying  a  man's 
musket — a  child  who  had  just  stepped  out  of  a 
cradle  into  the  ranks.  And  if  we  take  all  coun- 
tries of  the  earth,  we  find  privation  and  sorrow 
written  everywhere.  Now,  this  war  is  costing 
the  world  at  the  present  time  something  more 
than  $60,000,000  every  day,  and  something  more 
than  ten  thousand  lives  every  day.  And  the  sac- 
rifice and  the  slaughter  have  gone  on  day  after 
day  with  solemn  certainty  and  with  an  increas- 
ing uncertainty  as  to  the  end  of  it  all. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  me  to  describe  what 
I  believe  to  be  the  cause  of  it;  and  yet,  if  I  am 
permitted  to  put  that  cause  in  a  sentence,  it  is 
because  a  certain  group  of  nations  have  set  gain 
above  God,  have  set  national  aggrandizement 
and  aggression  above  national  righteousness  and 
fair  dealing.  As  a  consequence  of  that,  we  have 
witnessed  an  increasing  savagery  of  war ;  so  that 
it  is  no  longer  a  question  of  even  the  most  mod- 
ern science  in  the  art  of  warfare,  with  an  aim 
and  purpose  to  ameliorate  its  severity  and  pro- 
tect the  innocent,  but  a  complete  surrender  to 
the  bestial.  As  they  have  it  now,  it  is  no  longer 
a  contest  of  bodies  of  men  against  bodies  of  men. 
It  is  no  longer  an  open  conflict  upon  a  fair  plane, 
where  genius  and  strategy  and  courage  work  out 
a  national  problem.  But  it  is,  in  part  at  least, 
[38] 


ON  THE  EVENING  OF  REGISTRATION  DAY 

the  assassination  by  sea  and  slaughter  by  air,  and 
the  killing  of  women  and  children.  It  is  the 
casual,  pitiless  slaughter  of  the  unoffending  and 
the  defenseless. 

And  now,  by  the  rotation  of  events  and  the 
irresistible  logic  of  righteousness  which  summons 
every  brave  arm  to  the  right  side  of  the  cause, 
the  United  States  has  entered  this  war.  And 
it  will  never  turn  back  until  it  has  given  the 
world  peace;  not  merely  a  cessation  of  conflict, 
but  peace  based  upon  righteousness.  And  so  now 
we  are  in  the  business  of  summoning  the  re- 
sources of  the  greatest  nation  on  earth  in  the 
purest  mission  that  a  nation  ever  espoused.  Our 
factories  become  busy;  our  young  men  register; 
our  armies  become  trained;  and  we  undertake 
our  share  in  this  conflict.  Not  to  add  a  square 
inch  to  the  territory  of  the  United  States;  not  to 
take  from  any  man,  woman,  or  child  living  in 
the  world  a  single  thing  which  belongs  to  him; 
not  even  for  the  glory  of  successful  arms;  but 
in  order  to  reestablish  those  principles  of  na- 
tional justice  without  which  national  continu- 
ance and  life  can  not  prevail,  and  to  give  to  the 
stricken  peoples  of  the  world  who  have  been 
fighting  for  the  right,  rest  and  respite  to  rehabili- 
tate their  almost  destroyed  civilization. 

How  splendid  that  cause  is !  There  have  been 
times  in  history  when  men  stood  off  in  the  mar- 
ket place  and  beat  the  drum  or  played  the  fife 
and  men  went  out  to  fight  for  causes  that  were 
[39] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

less  high  than  this — a  cause  without  taint  of  sel- 
fishness and  without  tarnish  of  any  unholy  im- 
pulse. It  is  a  fight  for  principle  and  right,  and 
America  responds  to  it;  not  gaily,  as  a  nation 
which  likes  to  fight,  but  bravely  and  prayerfully, 
resolved  that  it  will  fight  to  the  end  in  a  cause 
for  democracy. 

There  is  an  old  story  among  the  Greeks  that 
when  Jason  was  off  in  some  remote  place  and  was 
in  need  of  soldiers  he  was  told  to  sow  dragons' 
teeth;  and,  acting  in  faith  on  that  advice,  he 
sowed  dragons'  teeth  in  the  earth;  instantly 
there  sprang  up  out  of  the  bosom  of  the  earth 
full  armed  and  panoplied,  a  company  of  soldiers 
which  he  led  to  triumph.  We  have  sown  not 
dragons'  teeth,  but  we  have  sown  the  principles 
of  freedom,  and  when  we  summon  the  people 
of  this  mighty  Nation  we  obtain,  as  did  Jason  in 
ancient  times,  our  response.  Here,  all  over  this 
continent,  ten  million  men  to-day  have  sprung 
up  ready  to  do  battle  for  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples upon  which  their  liberty  and  their  principles 
rest. 

There  are  old  men  in  this  company  who  weigh 
properly  the  significance  of  this  day.  They  know 
that  war  is  terrible,  and  they  view  this  day  with 
a  solemn  spirit.  And  there  are  young  men  and 
young  women  here  to-day  who  probably  have 
not  had  the  background  of  knowledge  and  expe- 
rience and  training  to  aid  them  to  grasp  the  full 
significance  of  all  that  is  going  on,  and  who  yet 
[40] 


ON  THE  EVENING  OF  REGISTRATION  DAY 

feel  a  sense  of  consecration  to  national  service. 
And  there  are  little  people  here  to-day  to  whom  in 
some  sense  this  is  a  holiday  and  a  festival.  But 
when  it  is  over  and  history  takes  the  measure  of 
it,  it  will  be  recognized  as  really  a  day  upon  which 
a  great  and  free  people  vindicated  themselves  and 
a  cause  to  the  rest  of  all  mankind. 

Against  the  doubt  in  the  minds  of  some  as  to 
whether  a  democracy  could  summon  its  strength 
in  the  issue,  we  find  that  all  doubts  on  that  sub- 
ject are  unworthy ;  that  those  who  argue  for  dic- 
tatorship and  strong  governments  are  answered 
by  the  events  of  to-day.  For  I  have  had  tele- 
grams from  more  than  thirty  States  of  this  Union 
showing  that  registration  has  proceeded  from 
early  morning  until  late  to-day  uninterrupted  by 
any  improper  or  discouraging  event.  Nor  is  there 
doubt  on  anybody's  part  that  it  is  our  patriotic 
duty  to  obey  the  law  provided  in  the  wisdom  of 
Congress  to  summon  soldiers  in  a  just,  democratic 
and  fair  way,  to  arm  the  Nation  in  defense  of  its 
rights. 


[41] 


THE  COLLEGE  GRADUATE  IN  THE  NEW 
WORLD 

When  peace  is  restored,  the  voyagers  from  America 
will  go  over  not  idly  to  find  the  place  where  Europe 
was,  but  to  bind  up  her  wounds  and  enable  her  people  to 
begin  again.  That  will  be  a  great  day  for  America. 

GEORGETOWN  UNIVERSITY  COMMENCEMENT 
EXERCISES,  JUNE  n,  1917. 

I  KNOW  of  no  more  pleasant  office  than  to 
visit  the  pier  of  a  great  steamship  to  bid  bon- 
voyage  and  God-speed  to  friends  as  they  are 
about  to  undertake  a  voyage  to  a  distant  coun- 
try. There  is  always  just  a  little  solicitude.  The 
imagination  conjures  up  dangers  and  difficulties 
which  may  lie  in  wait.  And  then,  with  happy 
faces  and  the  waving  of  handkerchiefs,  the  call 
of  glad  good-bys,  the  ship  is  off;  the  voyagers 
are  bound  for  a  distant  land.  And  so  with  the 
Commencement.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me 
an  especially  gratifying  and  pleasant  thing  to 
stand,  as  it  were,  on  the  shore  and  wave  good- 
by  and  God-speed  to  the  young  men  who  are  to 
embark  on  the  voyage  of  life,  and  to  allay  their 
fears  and  instruct  them  in  the  dangers  which  we 
older  people  are  assumed  to  have  encountered 
and  overcome. 

[42] 


THE  COLLEGE  GRADUATE  IN  NEW  WORLD 

Education  is,  after  all,  not  really  so  much  a 
distinction  as  it  is  a  trust.  We  are  educated  not 
for  the  purpose  of  making  us  better  than  other 
people  but  for  putting  us  in  a  position  where  we 
are  able  to  reach  down  a  hand  and  help  others. 
And  those  who  properly  conceive,  I  think,  the 
function  of  education  and  culture  in  the  world 
regard  it  as  a  disseminating  medium  for 
the  purposes  of  life  and  the  distribution  of  good 
to  mankind.  Education  is  a  curious  thing,  too, 
because  of  its  constant  change  of  character. 
There  was  a  time  when  there  was  very  little 
scholarship  in  the  world  as  we  now  know  it;  not 
that  there  were  not  always  scholars.  There  were 
certain  men  who  preferred  the  higher  things  and 
gave  their  time  to  reflection  and  contemplation 
and  meditation.  But  the  orbit  of  their  inquiry 
was  a  very  circumscribed  one.  Later,  men 
reached  out  into  nature  and  captured  new  forces 
and,  with  wonderful  ingenuity,  they  have  brought 
these  forces  down  and  made  them  serve  mankind, 
to  become  sources  of  comfort  and  means  of  ad- 
vancement. A  great  gift  to  the  world  is  bestowed 
when  a  college  is  able  to  hold  out  her  palm  and 
give  to  mankind  such  young  men  who  have  en- 
joyed four  years  of  culture  and  discipline  of  mind. 

To-day  is  a  curious  day  for  men  who  are  be- 
ing graduated  from  college.  I  remember  an 
old  story  of  a  child  that  went  into  a  great  hall 
in  some  baronial  castle,  and  as  this  child  played 
[43] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

about  among  the  great  emblems  of  the  past 
scattered  through  the  hall,  it  went  up  to  one 
figure  which  was  shrouded  in  a  soft,  silken 
garment.  The  child  stood  wrapt  in  wonder  as 
the  figure  shed  its  garment  and  disclosed  a 
knight's  armor.  And  so  it  is  as  you  men  come 
forward  to-day — as  your  gowns  fall  open,  the 
khaki  of  the  soldier  is  revealed.  We  are  under 
far  different  circumstances  from  those  in  which 
Commencements  are  ordinarily  held.  This  great 
country  of  ours,  this  land  of  generous  opportu- 
nities and  resources,  this  land  wedded  to  peace, 
this  land  married  to  justice,  which  has  set  justice 
and  equality  of  opportunity  and  fair  play  above 
every  material  possession,  this  land  of  ours  is  at 
war,  and  that  war  the  greatest  war  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  human  race. 

And  as  we  reflect  upon  this,  we  are  reminded 
that  the  presence  of  war  imposes  new  duties  upon 
us,  calls  for  a  new  organization  of  our  people  and 
a  course  out  of  the  customary  channels  of  our 
life.  This  war  began  for  us  as  no  other  war 
within  my  knowledge  of  history  ever  began. 
For  one  year,  two  years,  and  two  and  a  half 
years,  the  statesmen  of  this  country  were  seek- 
ing some  way  to  compose  the  agitated  powers  of 
the  world,  to  restore  justice  and  peace  to  the 
world.  We  professed  neutrality  and  pursued 
and  were  loyal  to  certain  fundamental  principles 
upon  which  we  believed  national  peace  to  rest. 
[44] 


THE  COLLEGE  GRADUATE  IN  NEW  WORLD 

Then,  not  driven  by  hurried  thoughts  to  quick 
emotions,  but  with  a  stern  realization  that  things 
had  come  to  a  state  in  which  life  was  utterly 
without  security,  we  entered  this  war;  not  with 
an  ambition  to  take  from  anybody  anything  that 
is  his ;  with  no  revenge  to  satisfy ;  with  no  unholy 
or  impure  purpose  and  no  tarnish  upon  our 
escutcheon,  we  appeared  in  this  war  as  friends 
of  men;  as  the  defenders  of  justice;  as  the  re- 
storers of  peace  to  a  stricken  world ;  as  establish- 
ers  of  international  freedom,  if  in  God's  provi- 
dence it  may  be  that  nations  may  dwell  in  se- 
curity and  peace.  I  have  no  doubt  some  of  you 
have  read  the  stories  of  King  Arthur  and  the 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table.  You  will  remem- 
ber it  was  the  function  of  these  men  to  bring 
justice  and  to  relieve  the  oppressed.  They  went 
out  into  the  world  with  no  particular  quarrel  of 
their  own  except  the  eternal  quarrel  that  man 
has  with  injustice.  They  were  knights-errant 
seeking  to  reestablish  a  better  world.  And  so, 
although  our  own  United  States  has  had  griev- 
ance after  grievance  that  more  than  justified  its 
entrance  into  war,  yet  in  some  sense  the  United 
States  is  a  knight-errant  in  this  conflict;  in  the 
sense  at  least  that  she  is  not  seeking  to  effect  a 
wrong  purpose  but  to  bring  peace  and  establish 
justice  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  and  seeking 
to  give  to  mankind  a  better  basis  for  the  enjoy- 
ment of  life. 

[45] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

And  so  now  we  are  in  this  great  war.  Our 
110,000,000  people  are  being  reasserted  and  new 
tasks  are  being  allotted  to  each  of  us.  The  sum- 
mons comes  to  some  of  you  to  put  on  uniforms 
and  go  as  soldiers  or  physicians  and  take  your 
place  with  the  military  forces  of  the  nation;  and 
to  some  it  is  a  call  to  stay  at  home.  It  is  for 
all  a  summons  to  a  part  of  the  great  task  that  is 
to  be  accomplished  in  order  that  the  great  army 
at  the  front  may  succeed.  But  whether  your 
place  is  in  a  trench  or  a  workshop  or  factory, 
whether  the  call  to  you  is  military  or  civil,  the 
call  is  of  equal  intensity  to  all  of  us  to  dedicate 
ourselves  and  everything  we  have  to  the  success 
of  the  great  cause  for  which  our  country  has  en- 
tered the  war — to  bring,  as  the  result  of  our  ac- 
tivities, peace  to  the  world.  For  that  is  above 
all  things  what  the  world  needs  most. 

But  that  is  not  especially  a  Commencement 
theme.  Some  day  this  war  will  be  over  and  then 
there  still  remains  a  great  fight  to  be  fought. 
This  shattered  civilization  has  to  be  reconstructed 
and  a  world  which  has  become  out  of  order  is  to 
be  readjusted  and  there  will  have  to  be  a  rehabil- 
itation of  practically  all  the  civilized  people  in 
the  world.  Now  there  are  not  so  many  civilized 
people  in  the  world.  More  than  two-thirds  of 
the  people  in  the  world  live  in  bamboo  houses  and 
the  "civilized"  peoples  are  at  present  destroying 
one  another  at  the  rate  of  ten  to  fifteen  thousand 
[46] 


THE  COLLEGE  GRADUATE  IN  NEW  WORLD 

a  day;  their  widows  are  dying,  their  children 
starving,  and  the  accumulations  of  ten  centuries 
of  accomplishment  are  being  destroyed  and 
leveled  to  the  ground.  And  when  this  holocaust 
is  over,  the  rehabilitation  and  the  reconstruction 
make  another  task  which  remains  to  be  under- 
taken. I  do  not  mean  to  undervalue  your  work 
as  soldiers.  If  your  country  reaches  out  for 
one  of  you  and  asks  that  you  give  your  life,  then 
thank  God  that  you  have  the  opportunity  to 
serve  and  if  necessary  to  die.  But  if  that  be 
not  your  task,  when  the  rehabilitation  comes, 
then  the  education  you  have  received  here  will 
be  in  great  demand ;  the  world  will  be  very  eager 
for  men  of  cultured  minds,  men  who  have  stud- 
ied the  philosophy  and  the  history  and  the  sci- 
ences of  the  race;  men  of  learning  and  knowl- 
edge; men  who  have  caught  the  inspiration  that 
the  college  man  has  the  best  opportunity  of  be- 
ing of  service  to  his  fellows. 

And  while  this  war  is  going  on,  I  trust  that 
all  of  us  will  recognize  the  imperative  necessity 
of  keeping  the  lamp  of  learning  burning.  We 
must  not  allow  our  schools  to  be  closed.  We 
must  not  feel  that  any  of  our  young  men  who 
can  be  spared  should  abandon  the  pursuit  of 
study.  But  rather  all  of  us  should  feel  that, 
while  the  actual  conflict  is  on,  there  should  be 
still  another  generation  of  cultured  young  men 
who  will  be  ready  to  proceed  with  this  work  of 
reconstruction. 

[47] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

I  do  not  want  to  harrow  your  feelings  by 
drawing  any  picture  of  the  desolation  of  the 
world  now,  and  yet  it  is  known  that  empires  are 
laid  waste;  in  certain  devastated  districts  of  Po- 
land it  is  said  there  is  not  now  living  a  child  under 
five  years  of  age.  Men,  women  and  children 
are  deported  from  their  native  places.  Even 
babies  are  trampled  out  of  existence  and  lost  in 
the  alternate  advance  and  retreat  of  the  herded 
people  as  they  seek  to  escape  their  adversary.  I 
once  saw  a  picture  of  Martinique  just  after  the 
volcanic  eruption — a  picture  of  a  great  waste; 
of  desolation;  the  mountains  slumbering  as  the 
stars  disappeared,  and  a  solitary  voyager  search- 
ing for  the  place  where  a  city  once  was.  That 
is  just  the  picture  of  the  world  abroad  and  the 
realization  of  the  destruction  which  has  come 
upon  it.  And  when  we  have  restored  peace  with 
justice  to  this  world,  then  the  voyagers  from 
America  will  go  over,  not  idly  to  find  the 
place  where  Europe  was,  but  to  bind  up  her 
wounds  and  enable  her  people  to  begin  again. 
That  will  be  a  great  day  for  America. 

Our  fathers  established  a  nation  in  order  that 
we  might  be  free,  and  in  1917,  1918,  or  when- 
ever it  is  to  be,  in  God's  providence,  that  peace 
is  restored  in  this  world,  we  will  take  up  the 
torch  our  fathers  lit  in  1776  and  plant  it  in  Eu- 
rope to  help  make  the  whole  world  free. 

I  congratulate  you,  therefore,  young  gentle- 
men, upon  your  graduation  day  and  this  com- 
[48] 


THE  COLLEGE  GRADUATE  IN  NEW  WORLD 

mencement  in  life.  I  greet  you  especially  be- 
cause you  are  commencing  at  an  heroic  time — 
you  are  entering  life  in  an  heroic  age.  The  com- 
monplaces have  been  swept  aside  and  there  is 
great  men's  work  before  you.  Don't  let  your 
learning  stop  with  your  diploma — continue  it, 
and  always  hold  it  in  readiness  to  bestow  on 
others.  Adopt  for  your  own  the  motto  exempli- 
fied in  the  life  of  Farragut,  "who  always  lived 
so  as  at  any  time  to  be  equal  to  the  greatest  task 
in  the  service  of  mankind  which  could  by  any 
possibility  be  demanded  of  him." 


[49] 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  1776  AND  THE 
LIBERTY  OF  1917 

/  can  see  the  day  when  our  harbors  will  be  filled  with 
the  mass  of  ships  returning  from  abroad  and  bringing 
back  our  soldiers.  They  will  come  with  their  ranks 
thinned  by  sacrifice,  but  with  themselves  glorified  by  ac- 
complishment; and  when  they  tell  us  that  they  have  won 
the  fight  for  democracy  in  Europe,  we  must  be  able  to 
tell  them  in  return  that  we  have  kept  the  faith  of  de- 
mocracy at  home. 

INDEPENDENCE    DAY    CELEBRATION,    THE    MAYOR'S 

COMMITTEE,  THE  STADIUM,  COLLEGE  OF  THE  CITY 

OF  NEW  YORK,  JULY  4,  1917. 

IN  1776,  on  the  4th  day  of  July,  a  nation  was 
born,  dedicated  to  a  new  theory  of  govern- 
ment and  a  new  ideal  of  human  liberty.  On  the 
4th  day  of  July,  1917,  our  newspapers  announced 
throughout  the  continent,  to  a  people  who  for 
nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  known 
political  liberty,  and  with  it  unexampled  prog- 
ress, that  an  expeditionary  force  of  their  sol- 
diers had  landed,  without  the  loss  of  a  man,  on 
the  soil  of  France  to  defend  in  that  place  the 
great  principle  of  democracy  and  liberty  under 
which  they  have  thrived  so  long. 

In  passing,  it  will  be  deemed  appropriate  for 
[50] 


INDEPENDENCE,  1776— LIBERTY,  1917 

me  to  pay  a  tribute  of  thanks  from  the  Army  to 
the  Navy  for  the  superb  way  in  which  they  ac- 
quitted themselves  of  the  grave  responsibility  of 
that  convoy.  And  I  think  I  can  say  to  the 
American  people  that  the  splendid  cooperation 
between  the  Navy  and  the  Army  which  charac- 
terized this  first  martial  exploit  is  a  promise  of 
a  happy  and  effective  cooperation  in  the  future. 
So  that  we  can  look  forward  to  the  American 
Army  and  the  American  Navy,  the  two  strong 
arms  of  the  American  people  on  many  glorious 
fields  and  on  many  glorious  seas,  sustaining  the 
traditions  of  our  country  and  establishing  for- 
ever the  belief  that  free  men  in  a  battle  for  free- 
dom need  fear  no  foe. 

One  of  the  traditional  policies  of  the  United 
States  from  its  beginning  has  been  the  avoid- 
ance of  entangling  alliances.  The  United  States 
is  in  no  entangling  alliance.  We  are  in  this  war 
upon  no  sordid  mission  of  any  sort.  We  do  not 
seek  to  take  the  possessions  of  any  other  people 
or  to  impose  by  force  our  will  upon  any  other 
people  in  the  making  of  their  government  or  by 
an  encroachment  upon  their  rights.  But  after 
a  patience  absolutely  unparalleled  and  after  an 
effort  worthy  of  our  civilization  to  accomplish 
the  recognition  of  our  rights  and  of  our  free- 
dom, by  diplomacy  and  by  every  peaceful  art, 
America  is  in  arms  now  to  vindicate  upon  the 
battlefield  the  right  of  democracy  to  exist  against 
the  denials  of  autocracy. 
[51] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

Things  have  come  to  a  pass  in  this  world 
where  all  mankind  must  choose  whether  the  na- 
tions of  the  earth  are  to  be  autocratic  in  their 
government  and  militarist  in  their  pretensions 
or  democratic  in  their  governments  and  just  in 
their  pretensions. 

America  has  chosen — nay,  she  chose  in  1776 
— to  be  democratic  in  her  policies  and  in  her  gov- 
ernment, and  our  whole  history  in  the  years  since 
then  justifies  the  statement  that  our  people  are 
wedded  and  devoted  to  the  idea  of  international 
justice  as  the  rule  by  which  nations  shall  live  to- 
gether in  peace  and  amity  upon  the  earth. 

So  that  when  we  entered  this  war  we  entered 
it  in  order  that  we  and  our  children  and  our 
children's  children  might  fabricate  a  new  and 
better  civilization  under  better  conditions,  enjoy- 
ing liberty  of  person,  liberty  of  belief,  freedom 
of  speech  and  freedom -as  to  our  political  insti- 
tutions. We  entered  this  war  to  remove  from 
ourselves,  our  children  and  our  children's  chil- 
dren the  menace  which  threatened  to  deny  us 
that  right. 

I  want  to  appeal  to  you  and  to  all  Americans. 
Never,  during  the  progress  of  this  war,  let  us 
for  one  instant  forget  the  high  and  holy  mission 
with  which  we  entered  it,  no  matter  what  the 
cost,  no  matter  what  the  temptation. 

Modern  times  have  witnessed  many  new 
things.  The  great  science  of  medicine  and  sani- 
[52] 


INDEPENDENCE,  1776— LIBERTY,  1917 

tation  has  wonderfully  advanced,  and  all  the 
safeguards  that  knowledge  and  science  can  throw 
around  our  soldiers  are  to  be  placed  about  them. 
And  in  the  great  encampments,  where  they  are 
to  be  trained,  modern  recreation  experts  are  to 
provide  wholesome  and  attractive  amusements 
for  their  leisure,  so  that  when  they  come  out  of 
the  Army  they  will  have  no  scars  except  those 
honorably  won  in  warfare  against  the  enemy 
of  their  country. 

We  must  look  forward  to  the  end  of  this  great 
business.  We  at  home  must  fight  for  democ- 
racy here  as  our  armies  for  it  abroad.  In  the 
midst  of  our  military  enterprises  we  must  be 
equally  loyal  to  our  own  political  theories  here. 
All  this  vast  reorganization  of  industry  must 
be  made  without  the  loss  of  the  great  physical 
and  social  gains  which  we  have  achieved  in  the 
last  sevenscore  years,  mostly  years  of  peace  and 
fruitful  effort  and  toil. 

We  must  not  allow  the  hours  and  conditions 
of  people  who  work  and  labor  in  factories  and 
workshops  to  be  upset  and  interfered  with.  We 
must  preserve  the  sweetness  of  our  rights.  We 
must  agree  in  deeds  of  grace  here,  as  our  sol- 
diers do  deeds  of  grace  on  the  other  side,  for 
I  can  see  the  day  when  our  harbors  will  be  filled 
with  the  mass  of  ships  returning  from  abroad 
and  bringing  back  our  soldiers. 

They  will  come,  it  may  be  with  their  ranks 
somewhat  thinned  by  sacrifice,  but  with  them- 
[53] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

selves  glorified  by  accomplishments;  and  when 
those  heroes  step  off  the  boats  and  tell  us  that 
they  have  won  the  fight  for  democracy  in  Eu- 
rope, we  must  be  able  to  tell  them  in  return  that 
we  have  kept  the  faith  of  democracy  at  home 
and  won  battles  here  for  that  cause  while  they 
were  fighting  there.  The  end  of  this  whole 
matter  is  that  when  this  war  is  over  and  it  is 
definitely  determined  among  the  children  of  men 
that  autocracy  is  bidden  to  veil  its  face  forever; 
when  government  becomes  all  over  the  world 
merely  the  instrument  of  enlightened  popular 
will  and  judgment;  when  the  interests  of  the 
lowest  and  the  least  in  every  society  are  vital  to 
the  welfare  and  the  interest  of  all  that  society; 
when  the  rule  of  the  people  is  established  in  the 
world  and  the  historians  write  it  down  that 
America,  born  in  freedom  and  dedicated  to  lib- 
erty, has  saved  that  great  doctrine  for  the  sal- 
vation of  mankind — it  will  then  be  said  that  in 
1917  we  arrayed  our  Nation  and  sent  to  the  war 
our  soldiers;  that  we  sustained  them  by  our  in- 
dustrial enterprises  at  home;  that  we  kept  our 
national  spirit  pure  and  undefiled;  and  that  the 
dawn  of  liberty  for  men  all  over  the  world  dates 
from  that  day  when  our  soldiers  landed  in 
France  and  began  the  final  battles  of  freedom. 


[54] 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  ENGINEERS 

/  hope  that  some  day  the  pretensions  of  dynasties  and 
the  contentions  of  autocracy  will  be  swept  into  the  waste- 
basket  of  a  forgotten  age. 

SOCIETY  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  ENGINEERING 
EDUCATION,  WASHINGTON,  JULY  7,  1917. 

THE  art  of  war  has  always  depended  upon 
such  science  as  there  was  at  the  time.  If 
we  take  science  out  of  the  war  in  which  we  are 
now  engaged  we  would  be  back  to  the  stone  axe 
and  the  javelin.  If  it  be  true,  as  I  think  it  is, 
that  the  engineer  is  the  transmuter  of  the  means 
of  science  into  the  accomplishments  of  modern 
industry  and  modern  civilization,  then  there  is  a 
message  that  can  be  given  to  those  interested  in 
the  promotion  of  engineering  education. 

Before  attempting,  however,  to  state  what  I 
think  the  mission  of  the  engineering  schools  is, 
it  may  not  be  inappropriate  for  me  to  say  as  a 
truism  that  never  before  in  the  history  of  the 
world  has  science  and  engineering  been  as  vital 
to  the  conquest  of  war  as  it  is  now.  The  head- 
quarters of  a  general  in  the  field  is  now  com- 
posed not  merely  of  adjutants  and  couriers  of 
[55] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

military  character,  but  every  commanding  gen- 
eral, I  suppose,  in  this  war  is  surrounded  by 
scientists  and  engineers,  and  no  important  mili- 
tary operation  can  now  be  undertaken  upon 
what  were  at  one  time  purely  military  considera- 
tions; there  must  be  concerted,  for  the  guid- 
ance of  the  commanding  general,  scientific  data 
with  regard  to  the  earth,  the  sky,  and  the  waters 
under  the  earth. 

The  place  of  the  geologists,  the  place  of  the 
constructing  engineers,  is  at  the  council  table 
of  the  commanding  general,  and  strategy  in 
war  no  longer  consists  of  mere  movements  of 
masses  of  men,  but  it  takes  into  account  accu- 
rate and  scientific  knowledge  of  the  physical  sur- 
roundings and  the  physical  conditions,  and  that, 
of  course,  can  be  brought  to  the  coordinate 
judgment  of  the  commanding  general  only  by 
the  aid  of  engineers. 

This  is  true  not  only  of  the  active  military 
operations  conducted  in  the  field;  it  is  true  in  a 
very  much  larger  sense  of  all  that  goes  into  the 
preparation  of  military  activities.  The  electri- 
cal engineer  is  now  as  much  a  part  of  the  En- 
gineering Corps  and  the  Coast  Artillery  Corps 
in  defense  of  the  country  as  any  purely  military 
officer.  That  is  merely  descriptive  of  a  situa- 
tion. But  the  thing  you  are  to  consider  is  what 
contribution  ought  now  to  be  made  by  those  in- 
stitutions which  are  devoting  themselves  to  the 
production  of  engineers  for  the  emergency  in 
[56] 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  ENGINEERS 

which  the  Government  and  the  Nation  finds  it- 
self. We  are  at  war  with  one  of  the  greatest 
powers  in  the  world,  with  a  power  that  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  was  the  greatest  military 
power  on  earth.  Our  adversary  has  reverted, 
has  gone  back  to  ancient  and,  we  believe,  bar- 
barous methods.  Our  duty  is  to  answer  every 
nation  that  has  gone  back  to  inhuman  methods; 
to  answer  by  taking  an  advanced  method  and 
by  bringing  to  the  Government  the  latest  and 
most  scientific  devices;  to  answer  our  adversary 
by  wiser  and  more  effective  preparation,  with 
superior  knowledge  and  advanced  positions  of 
a  scientific  kind,  so  that  we  will  overcome  by 
deserving  to  overcome,  by  using  the  latest  re- 
sources of  mankind  to  resist  his  aggression. 

Most  of  you  gentlemen  are  connected  with 
engineering  schools.  We  have  in  the  Army  a 
certain  number  of  engineers,  but  this  is  no  oc- 
casion for  us  to  rely  upon  the  handful  of  techni- 
cal assistants  which  the  Government  has  under 
its  constant  service.  There  must  be  coordina- 
tion of  the  scientific  talent  of  the  whole  country. 
There  must  be  added  all  of  the  scientific  genius 
and  knowledge  of  the  country.  The  man  in  the 
trenches  who  shoulders  a  gun  and  stands  face 
to  face  with  his  adversary  is  doing  a  more  strik- 
ing and  a  more  heroic  job,  but  the  man  in  the 
laboratory  is  doing  a  work  by  which  our  soldiers 
may  be  less  exposed  in  warfare ;  in  other  words  his 
[57] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

aim  will  be  to  bring  a  maximum  efficiency  with  a 
minimum  of  loss,  and  this  is  as  truly  a  necessary 
task. 

The  progress  in  the  art  of  war  is  from  day  to 
day,  not  from  year  to  year.  There  must  be  the 
same  sort  of  response  by  the  engineering  scien- 
tists of  this  country.  In  addition  to  that,  an 
even  larger  subject  is  the  relation  of  engineering 
education  and  technical  education  to  the  prospec- 
tive needs  of  the  country.  We  are  in  need  of 
fresh  accessions  of  trained  young  men  from  the 
technical  schools  of  the  country.  Our  Coast  Ar- 
tillery and  our  Engineer  departments  are  in  con- 
stant need  of  large  accessions  and  they  can  get 
them  at  their  very  best  from  the  schools  you 
gentlemen  are  associated  with.  It  therefore  be- 
comes the  necessary  thing  that  in  peace  time  the 
great  engineering  schools  of  the  country  should 
in  large  part  contribute  to  the  actual  organization 
of  the  Army  a  substantial  part  if  not  the  major 
part  of  peace-time  preparation  for  our  defense 
should  aggression  force  us  into  defensive  action. 

I  hope,  therefore,  if  the  thing  can  be  made  con- 
crete, that  it  will  be  assumed  that  one  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  colleges  and  technical  schools  mainly 
devoted  to  these  subjects  ought  to  be  so  to 
modify  the  curricula  of  their  schools  that  the 
young  men  who  have  special  aptitude  for  the 
scientific  things  which  are  useful  in  military  sci- 
ence will  have  an  opportunity  to  develop  their 
aptitude  and  bring  their  talent  to  the  aid  of  their 
[58] 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  ENGINEERS 

country  either  for  peace-time  preparation  or  in 
an  emergency  such  as  faces  the  country  now. 

So  that  my  suggestion  to  you  gentlemen  is 
that  all  of  the  engineering  and  scientific  talent 
of  the  country — and  the  utmost  pressure  should 
be  devoted  to  this  end — should  study  the  solution 
of  the  scientific  problems  presented  by  the  war. 
You  ought  to  expedite  the  training  of  young  men 
for  immediate  use  by  the  Government  in  this 
great  emergency,  and  you  ought  to  look  forward 
for  the  future  to  a  large  contribution  of  your 
great  engineer  schools  and  colleges  and  to  corre- 
lating the  training  so  that  it  will  be  very  easy  for 
the  young  men  to  render  a  maximum  assistance 
to  the  Government  if  the  emergency  comes. 

Nobody  knows  what  the  world  is  going  to  be 
like  when  this  war  is  over.  No  imagination  is 
able  to  picture  the  sort  of  civilization  the  world 
will  have  after  this  conflict.  Nobody  can  say 
how  long  this  war  is  going  to  last.  But  we  do 
know  that  when  this  war  is  over  the  rehabili- 
tation of  a  stricken  if  not  paralyzed  civiliza- 
tion is  going  to  be  a  long-drawn-out  and  up- 
hill task,  and  there  will  be  need  on  every  hand 
for  trained  minds,  for  trained  and  schooled  men. 
That  day  of  the  engineer  will  be  indeed  the  great 
day.  Men  should  then  be  present  in  very  large 
numbers  to  help  bring  about  the  rehabilitation 
of  industries,  and  reconstruction  upon  an  earth 
which  has  been  swept  by  an  all-consuming  con- 
flagration. 

[59] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

And  so  I  think  you  ought  to  have  as  an  es- 
pecial object  the  urgent  invitation  to  young  men 
of  America  to  come  into  your  technical  schools 
and  devote  themselves  to  engineering  branches 
of  education;  so  that  when  this  war  is  over  our 
struggle  will  not  have  been  in  vain;  that  our 
young  men  can  quickly  and  efficiently  play  their 
part  in  reconstruction. 

We  have  just  emerged  into  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, and  it  seems  there  are  just  a  few  of  the 
legacies  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  must 
be  eradicated.  When  the  reconstruction  of  the 
world  takes  place ;  when  a  finer  and  better  civili- 
zation has  been  worked  out;  when  the  human 
race  puts  its  shoulder  to  the  wheels  of  industry 
and  begins  to  spread  abroad  the  incalculably  val- 
uable discoveries  of  science,  I  can  imagine  that 
a  new  history  of  the  world  will  be  written.  And 
it  will  date,  I  think,  from  this  great  war,  when 
men  realized  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  a  fun- 
damental way  that  the  waste  in  conflict  was  an 
irrecoverable  waste;  that  the  upkeep  of  enor- 
mous armies  was  too  great  a  burden  to  bear; 
and  that  the  real  happiness  of  mankind  is  based 
upon  those  peaceful  pursuits  which  aim  to  make 
available  the  great  resources  of  the  world. 


[60] 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AN  OFFICER 

OF  THE  ARMY  OF  THE  UNITED 

STATES 

We  are  in  the  business  of  making  the  world  safe  for 
democracy;  but  we  are  also  in  the  business  of  showing  to 
the  world  what  we  for  a  long  time  have  known,  that  de- 
mocracy is  safe  for  the  world! 

CONCLUSION  OF  THE  FIRST  OFFICERS'  TRAINING 
CAMP,  FORT  MYER,  VA.,  AUGUST  13,  1917. 

"nX)R  a  long  time  the  Army  of  the  United 
JL  States  was  such  an  Army  as  a  great  Nation 
bent  on  the  ideals  of  peace  might  with  propriety 
have;  an  Army  of  men  of  the  highest  character 
and  most  perfect  training,  but  small  in  number; 
and  when  this  great  occasion  of  war  arose,  the 
quality  of  that  Army  became  instantly  apparent, 
for  in  all  the  training  camps  scattered  throughout 
the  country  the  same  story  has  been  told.  Young 
men  in  large  numbers  have  been  received,  for  the 
most  part  without  previous  military  service,  and 
in  an  incredibly  short  space  of  time  have  been 
made  to  march  and  feel  and  act  like  veterans. 
Thus  our  Regular  Army  has  shown  its  vitality 
by  its  capacity  for  rapid  absorption  and  expan- 
sion. I  congratulate  ourselves,  and  the  whole 
[61] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

country,  upon  the  fact  that  at  the  call  of  the 
country  there  could  be  assembled  in  these 
training  camps,  and  so  rapidly,  such  numbers 
of  men  without  previous  experience  and  train- 
ing, but  of  a  quality  and  character  to  take  on 
readily  these  new  capacities  and  aptitudes  which 
are  required  in  order  that  they  may  be  officers 
of  the  new  Army. 

We  have  for  many  many  years  thought  most 
of  peace,  and  there  were  certainly  many  peo- 
ple who  doubted  whether  we  could,  in  a  short 
space  of  time,  develop  the  national  capacity  for 
great  military  effort.  But  whatever  doubts  may 
have  been  entertained  at  any  time  on  that  sub- 
ject have  been  dispelled  by  you  gentlemen  in  this 
camp  and  your  associates  and  fellows  in  the 
other  training  camps  of  the  United  States.  It 
has  not  been  very  long  since  I  first  saw  you 
here  upon  the  third  day  of  your  assembling. 
Even  then  you  had  begun  to  acquire  the  setting 
up  and  the  appearance  of  soldiers,  and  in  these 
few  short  weeks  you  have  acquired,  as  it  seems 
to  my  eye,  the  proficiency  of  men  of  long  devo- 
tion to  military  pursuits.  It  is  an  inspiration  to 
us  in  this  country  to  feel  that  in  our  colleges,  on 
our  athletic  fields,  in  our  daily  social  life,  there  is 
not  a  deadening  inertia,  but  there  are  latent  ca- 
pacities ready  for  rapid  development,  so  that  as 
a  free  and  peace-loving  democracy  we  can  count 
with  certainty  upon  the  presence  of  these  ele- 
ments and  upon  the  strength  and  daring  of  any 
[62] 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AN  ARMY  OFFICER 

organizations  which  are  necessary  to  defend  the 
Nation  in  the  hour  of  need. 

I  shall  not,  of  course,  discuss  the  cause  of 
this  war;  that  issue  has  been  settled  for  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  and  our  country 
has  gone  into  the  conflict,  not  tossing  its  cap  in 
the  air,  but  with  the  moral  law  written  on  its 
heart,  stimulating  and  encouraging  its  every 
energy.  You  gentlemen  have  been  trained  now 
to  be  the  first  set  of  officers  in  the  National  Army, 
and  in  a  short  time  you  will  be  off  in  other  places 
receiving  the  young  men  of  this  country  and 
molding  them  into  an  army.  The  men  who  are 
to  come  to  you  have  not  been  selected  by  the  old 
process  of  volunteering,  chiefly  for  the  reason 
that  under  modern  war  conditions,  involving  all 
the  energies  of  a  nation,  that  method  of  selection 
is  not  sufficiently  discriminating,  and  so  another 
process — one  in  which  the  Nation  lays  down  the 
rules  and  exercises  the  choice — has  been  devised 
for  inviting  the  young  men  of  the  country  to 
assemble  in  the  Nation's  Army. 

These  young  men  are  considered  as  being  in- 
trusted to  the  Government,  and  you  are  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Government  in  receiving  them, 
for  the  purpose  of  being  disciplined,  instructed, 
drilled,  and  ultimately  used  in  the  defense  of 
the  principles  upon  which  this  Government  rests. 

I  want  you  always  to  remember  that  you  are 
officers  of  a  democratic  army,  that  discipline 
with  us  at  least  is  not  devised  for  the  creation 
[63] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

of  pleasant  emotions  in  a  man  who  gives  an 
order,  and  humiliation  in  a  man  who  receives  it, 
but  is  devised  for  the  purpose  of  executing  the 
common  will  and  of  preserving  the  common  right ; 
in  short,  in  the  giving  of  an  order  you  are  the 
trustees  of  the  common  voice  to  execute  the  com- 
mon will  and  preserve  the  common  safety.  There- 
fore, your  duty  as  officers  is  to  remember  that  the 
men  in  the  ranks,  like  yourselves,  are  citizens  and 
members  of  a  free  people,  that  all  the  obedience 
and  discipline  necessary  to  effect  the  common 
purpose  is  appropriate  and  proper;  and  yet  that 
the  human  relations  in  an  army  of  a  free  people 
are  important,  and  the  surroundings,  the  welfare, 
the  happiness,  and  the  life  of  every  man  in- 
trusted to  you  to  command,  is  a  part  of  the  wealth 
of  this  Nation  intrusted  to  you  to  use  most  care- 
fully, and  to  return  with  the  utmost  safety  you 
can. 

The  progress  that  the  Nation  is  making  in 
the  organization  of  its  forces  is  a  progress  as- 
tonishing to  those  who  doubted  the  vitality  of 
democracy  as  a  form  of  government.  We  are 
in  the  business  of  making,  in  the  phrase  of  the 
President,  "the  world  safe  for  democracy,"  but 
we  are  also  in  the  business  of  showing  to  the 
world,  what  we  for  a  long  time  have  known, 
that  democracy  is  safe  for  the  world. 

You  will  go  from  this  camp  to  places  scattered 
all  over  the  United  States.  Some  of  you  may  meet 
again  in  Army  experience,  and  some  of  you  may 
[64] 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AN  ARMY  OFFICER 

not.  You  have  been  given  here  esprit  de  corps; 
you  have  been  given  the  best  traditions  of  the 
Army  and  the  Nation.  I  ask  each  of  you  to  feel, 
in  whatever  company  you  may  be,  wherever  you 
are  associated  with  men  who  wear  the  uniform 
of  our  country,  that  you  are  a  trustee  of  the 
Nation's  honor  and  of  the  Nation's  interest,  and 
that  it  is  your  duty  to  pass  along  to  those  whom 
you,  in  turn,  shall  train,  the  highest  inspiration 
and  the  splendid  traditions  which  you  have  re- 
ceived at  the  hands  of  those  who  trained  you 
here. 


[65] 


LABOR'S  DIGNITY  AND  ITS  DUTY 

//  nobody  had  ever  known  honesty,  it  would  have  oc- 
curred to  some  scalawag  to  invent  it,  for  it  pays. 

LABOR  DAY  CELEBRATION,  NEWPORT  NEWS,  VA., 

SEPTEMBER  3,  1917. 

I  FIRST  want  to  call  your  attention  to  two 
things  about  the  United  States.  There  is 
no  other  country  in  the  world  which  has  in  the  last 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years  made  such  amazing 
progress  in  all  the  mechanical  arts.  The  ingenu- 
ity and  skill  of  our  workmen  has  so  transcended 
that  of  any  other  country  in  the  world  that  we 
may  say  without  boasting  that  ours  is  the  first 
industrial  country  of  the  world.  And,  second,  I 
want  you  to  note  that  there  is  no  country  in  the 
world  which,  during  the  same  period  of  years, 
has  made  so  much  progress  in  realising  the  im- 
portance of  the  life  and  health  and  welfare  of 
the  worker  to  the  nation  as  the  United  States. 
I  can  remember  that  when  I  was  a  boy  I  used  to 
be  told  in  Sunday  School  that  all  men  were 
brothers  and  because  of  this  sonship  in  a  common 
faith,  because  of  this  brotherhood  of  men,  we 
owed  one  another  an  obligation  of  care,  solicitude 
and  kindness.  But  that  was  a  somewhat  ill-defined 
[66] 


LABOR'S  DIGNITY  AND  ITS  DUTY 

and  indefinite  thing.  We  have  made  this  discovery 
in  the  United  States — that  we  are  brothers  not 
merely  in  the  sense  of  a  common  faith  but  in  an 
economic  sense;  that  we  are  so  tied  together  in 
this  modern  world  of  industrialism  that  the  wel- 
fare of  every  man  in  society  is  of  vital  importance 
to  every  other  man  in  society.  It  used  to  be  thought 
that  when  a  man  had  made  a  fortune,  as  it  is 
called,  he  could  retire  in  happiness  and  that  the 
rest  of  mankind  was  to  him  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence; but  now  we  have  learned  in  America  that 
no  man  is  so  rich  or  so  great  as  to  be  removed 
from  the  necessary  and  vital  interest  in  the  wel- 
fare of  the  poorest  man  in  America.  We  have 
discovered  that  if  it  be  the  fate  of  any  group  in 
society  to  have  learned  to  neglect  the  welfare  of 
its  workers,  that  group  is  doomed  to  decay,  dis- 
integration and  dissolution,  because  this  fact  has 
been  brought  home  to  the  people — that  the  wel- 
fare of  a  nation  depends  not  upon  the  number  of 
its  rich  men  nor  the  number  of  its  wise  men,  nor 
the  quantity  of  wisdom  nor  richness,  but  it  de- 
pends upon  the  plane  upon  which  the  great  mass 
of  mankind  lives.  If  that  be  elevated  a  point, 
there  come  into  the  life  of  the  worker  sweetness, 
recreation  and  repose.  If  the  door  of  opportunity 
is  open  to  the  children  of  the  worker,  there  is 
predestined  continuous  progress  and  success.  Now 
as  a  consequence  of  our  having  reached  that  idea, 
these  things  have  been  achieved  in  America  and 
we  have  made  great  ethical  gains.  .  .  .  America 
[67] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

is  at  the  top  among  the  nations  of  the  world  by 
reason  of  this  fact — that  we  have  compulsory  and 
universally  free  education,  and  that  in  the  last 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  this  process  of  educa- 
tion has  gone  on  until  we  have  written  upon  the 
statute  books  of  the  various  States  wise  and 
prudent  laws  restricting  the  hours  of  labor  of 
women  employed  in  workshops  and  factories. 
Five,  nearly  six,  million  women  in  the  United 
States  earn  their  own  living  and  the  whole  mind 
of  America  has  been  awakened  to  the  fact  that 
the  mothers  of  the  future  generation  cannot  be 
sacrificed  by  too  long  hours  or  by  insanitary  con- 
ditions without  imperiling  the  generation  that  is 
to  follow. 

One  of  the  things  that  most  interested  me  when 
I  first  became  interested  in  public  affairs  was  child 
labor.  I  remember  how  I  used  to  point  to  the 
mines  of  Pennsylvania  and  other  places  where 
little  children  of  nine,  even  seven,  years  of  age 
were  employed  long  hours,  with  the  result  that 
their  little  backs  became  bent,  they  became  weak 
and  the  whole  vitality  of  the  nation  was  threat- 
ened by  that  assault  upon  its  vigor.  We  used  to 
point  out  that  while  we  were  working  children  in 
the  factory  nine  or  ten  hours  a  day,  insanity  was 
increasing  so  that  there  was  not  a  State  which 
had  room  enough  in  its  asylums  for  its  insane,  nor 
room  in  its  prisons  for  its  convicts.  As  Mayor 
of  a  great  city,  I  used  to  stand  in  the  police  court 
and  see  young  men  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  of 
[68] 


LABOR'S  DIGNITY  AND  ITS  DUTY 

age  who  had  been  put  into  mills  and  factories  be- 
fore they  had  had  any  education.  Their  con- 
sciences and  minds  had  been  enfeebled  so  that 
they  yielded  to  the  temptations  of  a  great  city, 
and  gave  themselves  up  to  crime.  In  the 
twenty  years  which  have  elapsed  since  that  day 
there  is  not  a  State  which  has  not  prohibited  that 
sacrifice  of  the  youth  of  our  country;  all  over  this 
land  we  find  our  workshops  inspected  by  public 
inspectors  who  report  the  sanitary  conditions  un- 
der which  they  work  and  there  is  going  on  a 
gradual  elevation  of  the  life  of  the  whole  people 
of  the  United  States  as  a  consequence  of  an 
awakening  on  the  part  of  the  people  to  the  fact 
that  right  pays.  I  remember  reading  a  statement 
that  if  nobody  had  ever  known  honesty,  some 
scalawag  would  have  invented  it  because  it  pays. 
Right  always  pays. 

Every  now  and  then  somebody  tells  me  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  have  not  yet 
realized  that  there  is  a  war.  You  realize  it.  I 
don't  suppose  it  is  possible  for  anybody  to  cast 
his  eyes  over  these  waters  without  knowing 
that  war  is  going  on.  .  .  .  How  very  different 
this  realization  is  now  from  1914,  when  war 
started.  When  the  war  first  broke  out,  I  have 
no  doubt  everybody  in  this  room  was  puzzled  as 
to  what  caused  it  to  break  out.  We  read  the 
newspapers  with  the  thought:  "This  is  another 
one  of  those  questions  which  pass  the  compre- 
hension of  us  over  here."  Later  we  saw  that  it  was 
[69] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

becoming  a  universal  question.  We  found  that  the 
Central  Empires  were  drawing  themselves  to- 
gether and  practically  dividing  the  civilization 
of  the  rest  of  mankind.  We  found  that  Russia, 
great,  vast,  sleeping  Russia,  a  land  long  gov- 
erned by  tyranny  but  a  land  predestined  to  a 
great  future  (and  you  and  I  will  all  live  to  see 
the  day  when  the  kinship  between  Russia  and  the 
United  States  will  show  the  development  of  a 
democracy  of  which  we  can  claim  to  have  been 
in  some  sense  the  authors,  and  of  which  we  will 
always  be  the  partners  and  beneficiaries) — we 
found  that  Russia  was  involved;  then  England 
was  brought  into  it.  Then  we  began  to  find  this 
strange  thing,  that,  instead  of  being  a  war  about 
the  Balkans  or  about  some  obscure  question, 
it  was  in  reality  a  war  to  settle  a  question  which 
affects  every  man  who  lives  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  That  question  is  not  whether  Serbia  shall 
apologize  to  Austria,  but  that  question  is: — 
"Are  men  created  to  be  the  slaves  of  a  State  or 
is  the  State  created  to  be  the  servant  of  men?" 
I  need  not  summarize  the  philosophy  of  the 
Central  Empires  to  you.  The  people  of  Germany 
have  been  taught  to  believe  that  German  culture, 
German  civilization  is  so  much  better  than  any 
other  civilization  or  culture  in  the  world  that  it 
is  their  duty  to  force  it  upon  the  rest  of  the  world, 
and  to  kill  all  the  rest  of  the  world  in  the  process 
if  necessary.  I  am  not  stating  it  too  strongly; 
I  am  not  stating  it  more  strongly  than  their 
[70] 


LABOR'S  DIGNITY  AND  ITS  DUTY 

own  philosophers  have  stated  it.  Our  theory  has 
been  other  than  that.  We  have  inherited  the 
belief  that  the  State  is  an  association  or  part- 
nership, organized  by  a  number  of  persons  for  the 
purpose  of  attending  to  their  common  affairs,  so 
that  their  lives  can  be  lived  in  peace  and  security. 
We  have  come  to  a  place  where  it  is  to  be  decided 
which  of  these  philosophies  is  right;  whether 
autocracy  or  democracy  shall  rule;  whether  the 
true  life  of  men  is  that  of  servitude  or  that  of 
liberty  and  freedom.  We  were  attending  to  our 
own  business  and  we  tried  to  be  as  neutral  as  we 
could,  when  the  Central  Powers  suddenly  began 
more  and  more  ruthlessly  to  encroach  upon 
our  rights.  They  announced  and  lived  up  to  the 
policy  that  nothing  should  stand  between  them 
and  success  and  that  they  would  not  merely  over- 
ride their  enemies  but  they  would  crush  the  life 
out  of  neutrals  and  friends  if  necessary  to  accom- 
plish their  purpose. 

It  seems  a  remote  thing  and  yet  every  time  I 
close  my  eyes  I  can  see  the  docks  at  Queenstown 
— the  boats  coming  in  and  landing  women  and 
children,  mothers  dead  with  babes  clutched  in 
their  arms.  All  day  long  that  procession  comes 
until  at  nightfall  there  lie  on  those  docks  hun- 
dreds of  people,  many  American  men  and  Ameri- 
can women;  many  American  babies  slaughtered 
by  the  juggernaut  of  German  Imperialism. 

Our  country,  under  the  leadership  of  her  Presi- 
dent, was  very  peaceful.  We  are  a  peaceful  peo- 
[71] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

pie  by  nature.  Our  preference  is  for  the  paths 
of  peace.  We  love  to  do  justice  rather  than  to 
make  war  and  so,  by  all  the  arts  of  diplomacy, 
we  sought  composition  with  our  mad  adversary, 
until  finally,  after  we  had  received  promises 
readily  made  but  ruthlessly  broken,  after  it  be- 
came perfectly  evident  that  indiscriminate  war 
was  to  be  made  upon  every  man,  woman  and  child 
in  the  universe,  and  after  it  became  apparent  that 
all  America's  rights  were  involved,  then  the  Ad- 
ministration, the  Congress  and  the  people  of  the 
United  States  determined  that  we  should  go  in 
and  help  put  an  end  both  to  this  false  philosophy 
and  to  these  murderers  of  civilized  practices. 

And  so  we  are  in  this  war.  We  are  not  stir- 
ring up  evil  passions  in  ourselves  about  individu- 
als. I  think  I  can  say  that  I  do  not  hate  any 
man,  German  or  otherwise,  in  this  world;  but  I 
know  that  the  American  people  have  a  relentless 
and  unalterable  determination  to  stay  in  this 
struggle  until  this  reign  of  terrorism  is  forever 
banished  and  the  relations  of  nations  and  peoples 
upon  the  earth  are  established  upon  a  basis  of 
justice  and  equality  instead  of  limitless  power  and 
insane  ambition. 

Some  people  say  that  they  do  not  know  how 
long  the  war  will  last.  I  do !  It  will  last  until  we 
win  it.  When  it  has  been  won,  we  shall  not  pun- 
ish, we  shall  not  undertake  to  defy  the  laws  of 
nature  and  the  wishes  of  men;  but  with  victory 
in  one  hand,  we  will  try  to  bring  benefaction  in 
[72] 


LABOR'S  DIGNITY  AND  ITS  DUTY 

the  other  and  bind  up  the  wounds  of  the  human 
race.  Now  why  do  I  say  this  to  you?  There 
are  in  this  audience  some  young  men  wearing 
the  uniform  of  our  country  and  it  may  be  their 
lot  to  fight  in  the  trenches  on  the  Western  Front. 
Most  of  this  audience  is  made  up  of  men  and 
women  who  can  never  bear  that  kind  of  a  part 
in  the  struggle.  But  you  can  bear  another  kind 
of  part  in  the  struggle — and  that  one  of  tremen- 
dous importance.  Under  modern  conditions,  wars 
are  not  made  by  soldiers  only,  but  by  nations.  The 
man  who  is  at  the  riveting  hammer  in  this  ship- 
building yard,  the  man  who  drives  the  trains  that 
take  the  goods  to  the  people  abroad ;  the  clerk  who 
enters  upon  his  records  the  things  to  be  shipped 
— every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  United 
States  is  contributing  to  the  aggregate  of  our 
national  strength  in  this  cause.  Since  we  first 
began,  I  have  been  thrown  much  with  labor 
and  its  representatives.  I  have  learned  to  love 
and  admire  the  abilities,  loyalty  and  patriotism  of 
Samuel  Gompers  and  his  associates.  I  have 
learned  to  know  that  labor  is  loyal,  that  labor 
is  part  of  this  country  in  its  determination  to  win 
the  war.  I  want  to  ask  you  especially  who  live 
at  Newport  News,  in  this  great  center,  this  bee- 
hive of  war  activity, — I  want  to  ask  you  to  inspect 
your  own  efforts  with  this  kind  of  reflection: — 
Pick  out  some  boy  in  uniform  and  remember  that 
some  day  he  may  be  under  fire  and  the  thing 
between  life  and  death  for  him  may  be  some 
[73] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

thing  that  you  are  doing  in  Newport  News. 
Whenever  you  strike  a  rivet,  men,  regard  it  as 
an  act  for  justice  and  liberty.  Do  your  share 
here  in  order  that  success  may  come  to  those 
abroad.  Then  when  this  is  all  over;  when  the 
clock  that  God  has  fixed  in  His  watch-tower 
strikes  twelve  upon  this  horrible  series  of  events, 
— when  that  time  comes,  America,  by  the  coop- 
eration of  her  workers  and  her  statesmen,  by  the 
cooperation  of  her  soldiers  abroad  and  her  sol- 
diers at  home,  will  have  built  up  a  true  democracy 
of  feeling  among  us,  so  that  we  can  enter  into 
the  life  which  is  to  follow  this  great  struggle, 
hand  in  hand.  The  distinctions  and  differences 
will  be  broken  down  among  us  and  a  common  pur- 
pose created  so  to  elevate  the  general  life  of  our 
country  that  the  future  generations  of  men  and 
women  will  get  out  of  this  war  benefits  that  will 
compensate  for  the  losses  and  sacrifices  which  we 
are  called  upon  to  put  into  it.  I  want  the  blood  of 
every  American  boy  which  must  needs  be  spilled 
abroad, — if  any  must  be  spilled  there, — I  want  the 
labor  on  this  side  of  the  ocean  and  on  that  side 
given  as  a  fructifying  influence  for  true  democ- 
racy, and  for  the  greater  day  to  come  when  na- 
tions will  live  together,  bound  in  ties  of  justice 
and  arbitrating  their  disputes,  taking  common 
council  among  themselves  in  order  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  men  everywhere.  So  that  when  the 
historian  writes  the  story  of  this  war,  he  will 
close  the  chapter  with  the  statement  that  out  of 


LABOR'S  DIGNITY  AND  ITS  DUTY 

this  great  struggle  of  the  human  race  there  arose 
an  heroic  quality  of  spirit  which,  transmuted  into 
works,  ennobled  the  people  and  the  faith  of  man- 
kind on  earth. 


[75] 


THE  MARCH  TOWARD  LIBERTY 

For  a  thousand  years  children  zvill  read  in  their  books 
of  history,  and  the  literature  of  the  world  will  be  enriched 
zvith  the  poetry  and  romance  growing  out  of  this  age  in 
which  we  live.  We  pour  out  our  treasures,  not  at  the 
feet  of  the  God  of  War,  but  into  the  lap  of  the  Goddess 
of  Liberty! 

LIBERTY  LOAN  MEETING,  KEITH'S  THEATER, 
WASHINGTON,  OCTOBER  8,  1917. 

IN  this  center  of  the  nation's  activity;  in  this 
city,  which  since  we  went  into  this  war  has 
perhaps  doubled  in  population ;  in  this  city  where 
the  once  peaceful  beauty  of  a  quiet  capital  has 
given  place  to  almost  feverish  preparation  and 
activity,  there  seem  to  be  obvious  lessons  on  every 
street  and  in  every  house,  of  the  character  of  the 
task  which  the  nation  has  assumed ;  and  yet  it  is 
not  inappropriate  that  a  few  words  should 
be  said  that  will  give  some  comprehension,  per- 
haps, of  the  size  of  that  task  and  bring  home  its 
patriotic  lesson  to  the  people  who  are  privileged 
to  live  thus  close  to  the  center  of  the  nation's 
life. 

For  a  thousand  years,  children  will  read  in 
their  books  of  history  and  the  literature  of  the 
world  will  be  enriched  with  the  poetry  and  ro- 
[76] 


THE  MARCH  TOWARD  LIBERTY 

mance  growing  out  of  this  age  in  which  we  live. 
The  stories  which  will  then  be  told,  are  the  his- 
tory which  is  now  being  made,  and  I  delight,  in 
moments  of  idleness,  to  try  to  project  myself  into 
that  remote  and  distant  future  and  see  the  bent 
figure  of  some  school-boy  as  he  pores  over  the 
history  of  this  period;  I  think  I  can  detect  even  in 
a  boy  so  remote  from  the  action  of  this  time,  the 
surge  of  enthusiasm  in  the  things  that  the  world 
is  now  doing. 

I  shall  not  undertake  in  the  very  brief  time 
allotted  for  this  address,  to  recount  the  history 
of  the  European  War  prior  to  our  entrance  into 
it  nor  the  occasion  for  our  entrance.  But  if  there 
be  anything  certain  about  a  contemporaneous  es- 
timate of  the  historical  facts,  the  verdict  of  his- 
tory will  be  that  this,  the  first  great  free  nation 
of  the  world — in  this  age  the  greatest  nation  in 
the  world,  in  material  resources,  and  in  the  prog- 
ress she  has  made — was  also  the  greatest  nation 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  at  this  time  in  her  moral 
quality  and  in  the  superb  patience  with  which 
she  endeavored  to  avert  this  catastrophe. 

For  long  and  weary  months,  with  our  minds 
daily  harrowed  and  our  hearts  nightly  torn  with 
the  stories  of  destruction,  devastation,  cruelty  and 
despoliation  of  peoples  everywhere,  we  still  hoped 
against  hope  that  the  war  could  be  brought  to  a 
conclusion,  just  to  mankind  and  promising  for 
future  progress,  without  the  unsheathing  of  our 
sword. 

[77] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

When,  finally,  after  one  bitter  evidence  had 
accumulated  upon  another,  and  we  realized  that 
this  was  really  the  final  war  of  two  great  phil- 
osophies ;  and  when  we  as  Americans  realized  that 
the  nations  fighting  on  what  we  now  call  our 
side  were  really  children  of  our  spirit  and  bap- 
tized with  the  notion  of  liberty  which  we  had 
fostered  in  this  country  for  over  a  hundred 
years;  and  when  we  realized  that  England, 
France,  Italy  and  Russia  were  fighting  the 
battle  not  for  selfish  aggrandizement,  but  for  lib- 
erty and  opportunity,  and  for  the  philosophy  of 
democracy  on  the  part  of  the  whole  world,  it  be- 
came necessary  for  us  to  join  with  them  in  order 
to  vindicate  that  philosophy. 

On  the  bottom  of  the  pathless  ocean  lie  now  the 
bones  and  the  bodies  of  American  men,  women 
and  children  slain  while  we  were  still  neutral,  in 
defiance  of  every  law  that  man  ever  ordained  for 
the  limitation  of  the  horrors  of  war.  Our  spe- 
cial grievance  was  only  the  occasion,  and  now 
that  we  are  entered  in  this  great  conflict,  we 
realize,  with  an  inspiration  that  I  think  must  fire 
every  man,  that  this  is  merely  the  second  stage  in 
the  march  of  the  human  race  toward  liberty.  It 
began  in  1776.  In  1917  we  pass  the  next  mile- 
stone, and  when  it  is  passed,  men  and  women 
everywhere  will  realize  that  no  return  of  the 
Darker  Age  is  possible ;  that  victory  has  been  won 
in  this  contest,  autocracy  having  been  demon- 
strated as  too  wasteful  and  too  regardless  of 
[78] 


THE  MARCH  TOWARD  LIBERTY 

human  life  and  human  treasure  to  be  tolerated, 
and  democracy  having  been  demonstrated  to  be 
not  only  the  source  of  fruitful  happiness  and  op- 
portunity in  time  of  peace,  but  to  contain  in 
itself  the  strength  to  survive.  Having  thus 
demonstrated  the  feebleness  and  viciousness  of 
the  principle  of  autocracy  and  the  virility  and 
salvation  of  the  principle  of  democracy,  we  will 
start  from  a  fresh  platform  with  a  new  idea  of 
its  possibilities  and  a  new  hold  upon  permanent 
liberty  and  democratic  institutions. 

As  a  result,  this  country  presents  a  strange  but 
inspiring  spectacle.  I  have  had  some  opportu- 
nity at  Washington  to  participate  in  the  formu- 
lation of  plans,  and  out  of  Washington,  I  have 
had  some  opportunity  to  see  the  fruition  of  those 
plans.  In  sixteen  places  in  this  country  cities 
have  been  built,  as  it  seems,  over  night,  housing 
great  multitudes  of  peoples — thirty  and  forty 
thousand  young  men  selected  out  of  the  body  of 
our  men ;  not  in  response  to  a  sudden  impulse  of 
the  military  power,  but  selected  by  the  civilian 
agencies  of  our  people  and  presented  to  our  gov- 
ernment to  be  trained  as  a  great  army  to  partici- 
pate in  this  reconquest  of  the  world's  liberty. 
Thus  great  cities  have  been  built. 

Where  we  used  to  spend  five,  ten,  or  fifteen 
millions  of  dollars,  we  are  now  spending  money 
that  counts  up  in  the  billions.  We  are  financing 
to  some  extent  those  associated  with  us  in  this 
war  who  have  been  long  bearing  the  drain  and 
[79] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

strain  of  continuous  warfare.  We  are  spending 
money  for  munitions  of  war  and  for  supplies,  and 
our  factories  are  responding  with  extraordinary 
energy.  In  workshops,  factories,  stores,  the  peo- 
ple of  America  have  associated  themselves  in  this 
great  enterprise  until  our  nation,  our  peaceful 
and  peace-loving  nation,  is  to-day  knit  together  in 
spirit,  more  harmonious  in  its  aspirations,  more 
effective  in  its  occupations.  We  are  more  of  a 
nation  to-day  than  we  have  been  at  any  time  in 
the  whole  hundred  years  and  more  of  our  glorious 
history. 

I  have  stood  at  those  camps  and  watched  the 
boys  who  are  preparing  to  be  soldiers.  I  have 
seen  them  stream  past  by  tens  of  thousands; 
some  of  them  fresh-called  to  the  colors  from 
homes  in  remote  places,  far  from  the  great  rush 
of  the  world's  events;  some  of  them  students, 
from  colleges;  some  of  them  engineers,  men  of 
occupations,  professions,  science;  and  as  I 
have  seen  those  youthful  faces  I  have  had  a  new 
realization  of  the  springs  of  national  action.  As 
I  saw  those  men  I  could  not  persuade  myself  that 
all  of  them  were  deeply  read  in  the  history  of  the 
world;  I  could  not  persuade  myself  that  they 
knew  the  ultimate  nature  of  this  conflict  of  free- 
dom with  autocracy  in  the  world;  but  there  they 
marched  with  the  sun  shining  on  their  faces,  with 
flushed  health  in  their  cheeks,  determination  and 
a  heroic  quality  about  them  that  simply  pervaded 
the  atmosphere.  And  I  realized  that  it  is  not 
[80] 


THE  MARCH  TOWARD  LIBERTY 

necessary  for  a  man  to  be  a  philosopher  or  a 
scholar  to  be  a  patriot,  that  there  is  something 
subtle  in  the  very  character  of  our  soil  that  goes 
into  the  system  of  those  born  on  it,  and  that  this 
great  army  of  young  men  reaching  from  the 
Pacific  to  the  Atlantic,  and  now  streaming  across 
the  Atlantic  are  men  who  possess  that  subtle 
quality  and  are  filled  with  the  spirit  of  patriotism, 
and  that  when  our  forces  actually  join  with  those 
on  the  other  side  the  great  battle  will  be  won. 

And  that  schoolboy  a  thousand  years  from  now 
who  reads  the  history  of  this  age  will  read  with 
admiration  and  throbbing  heart  of  France — 
leader  in  the  world's  civilization,  that  country 
through  which  Defoe  said  every  great  idea  had  to 
pass  in  order  that  it  might  be  familiarized  to  the 
world — he  will  read  of  that  France,  not  prepared 
for  this  sort  of  struggle,  devoting  herself  to  the 
redemption  of  her  freedom  and  protection  of  her 
soul.  When  he  comes  to  her  glorious  victory  at 
the  Marne,  he  will  experience  such  a  thrill  as 
we  used  to  feel  as  we  read  the  story  of  Ther- 
mopylae and  Marathon.  And  when  he  comes  to 
read  of  England  he  will  have  a  realization  of 
the  English  people  which  I  think  is  slowly  being 
brought  home  to  us  all.  The  English  people  speak 
of  themselves  as  "muddling  through";  but  that 
schoolboy  a  thousand  years  from  now  will 
promptly  see  that  that  nation,  with  its  terrible 
patience,  was  able  to  wait  and  coordinate  its 
military  and  industrial  strength  until  it  arrived  at 
[81] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

a  point,  when  it  could  and  did,  with  clock-like 
regularity,  beat  back  the  foe. 

Then  he  will  come  to  our  entrance  into  the  war, 
and  coupling  it  up  with  what  he  has  been  read- 
ing before,  he  will  go  back  to  the  origin  of  our 
liberty  and  see  the  people  of  this  continent, 
having  wrought  out  their  own  civilization,  having 
elevated  the  individual  man  to  a  new  dignity  in 
world  affairs,  join  the  others,  and  he  will  realize 
that  the  victory  will  belong  to  the  heroic  quality 
of  these  united  races. 

He  will  ask  whether  all  the  war,  all  the  victory, 
was  won  at  the  front.  He  will  find  that  war  had 
become  of  such  a  quality  that  the  fighting 
men  are  but  part  of  a  nation's  army,  that  there 
is  required  to  be  at  home  in  the  field  the  grower 
of  food  and  in  the  factory  the  maker  of  products, 
in  order  that  the  men  at  the  front  may  fight ;  and 
that  underlying  the  whole  structure,  is  the  finan- 
cial stability  and  the  financial  willingness  of  the 
people  to  fight  the  fight. 

And  so,  with  this  opportunity  to  subscribe  to 
Liberty  Bonds,  we  are  appealing  now  to  the  very 
foundation  of  the  nation's  strength  and  the  indis- 
pensable thing  upon  which  its  activities  must 
rest,  and  we  ask  the  people  of  the  United  States 
to  sacrifice.  I  have  had,  since  I  have  been  Secre- 
tary of  War,  thousands  of  letters  from  high- 
spirited  men  and  women  all  over  the  United 
States,  from  children  nine  and  ten  years  old  to 
men  eighty  and  ninety,  asking  me  "Where  can  I 
[82] 


THE  MARCH  TOWARD  LIBERTY 

do  my  bit?  What  sacrifice  can  I  make  to  ad- 
vance this  cause?"  Some  are  too  young  and 
some  are  too  old  to  fight,  but  none  are  too  old  or 
too  young  to  sacrifice  in  this  great  financial 
effort,  which  is  the  basis  upon  which  all  must 
rest. 

I  can  see  victory  ahead  of  us ;  a  victory  in  arms, 
it  is  true,  but  a  higher  victory  than  that.  I  can 
see  the  American  spirit,  the  unselfish,  uncor- 
rupted,  untainted  spirit  of  America  with  which 
we  have  gone  into  this  struggle,  dominant  in  the 
world  as  the  result  of  that  victory.  I  can  see 
the  peace  that  is  to  be  made  as  the  result  of  this 
great  struggle ;  and  it  is  a  peace  which  brings  us 
no  selfish  advantage,  no  national  monopoly  of 
the  goods  of  the  world,  the  possession  of  nobody 
else's  goods  and  fortunes  as  the  outcome,  but  an 
enkindling  of  a  new  spirit  of  justice ;  a  peace  after 
which  the  nations  of  the  earth  will  join  hands  in 
harmonious  cooperation  rather  than  in  selfish, 
deadly  preparation  for  mutual  destruction.  And 
in  order  that  there  may  be  a  war  fought  to  a  vic- 
torious conclusion,  a  peace  so  high  and  beneficent 
as  that,  those  who  are  carrying  forward  this 
campaign  ask  you  to  pour  out  your  money,  not 
at  the  feet  of  the  God  of  War,  but  into  the  lap  of 
the  Goddess  of  Liberty. 


[83] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

/  want  them  adequately  armed  by  their  Government, 
but  I  want  them  to  have  also  an  invisible  armor  to  take 
with  them. 

NATIONAL  CONFERENCE  ON  WAR  CAMP  COMMUNITY 

RECREATION  SERVICE,  WASHINGTON, 

OCTOBER  23,  1917. 

THIS  great  national  emergency  presents  two 
responsibilities  and  two  opportunities.  One, 
of  course,  is  the  perpetuation  of  the  principles 
upon  which  our  Government  is  established,  by 
success  against  the  adversary  who  has  questioned 
our  integrity.  The  other  is  the  coincident  upbuild- 
ing of  the  strength  and  wholesomeness  and  viril- 
ity of  our  own  people.  The  task,  or  a  part  of  the 
task,  which  in  a  special  sense  has  been  adopted  by 
you,  has  more  to  do  with  the  latter  than  with  the 
former  of  those  two  opportunities,  though  it  is  of 
first  importance. 

We  are  interrupting  the  normal  life  of  this 
Nation.  We  are  summoning  out  of  their  com- 
munities and  their  homes  a  vast  number  of  young 
men.  We  are  taking  men  from  their  normal 
environments,  from  their  usual  occupations;  we 
are  violently  interrupting  their  customary  modes 
£84] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

of  thought.  Now,  everybody  knows,  of  course, 
that  one  of  the  great  social  restraints,  one  of  the 
things  that  make  ordered  society  possible  at  all, 
is  the  existence  of  a  state  of  social  habits  on  the 
part  of  a  people;  that  those  social  habits  are  the 
things  we  acquire  as  we  grow  up  in  a  community. 
They  are  enforced  by  the  sanction  of  personal 
approval  of  the  people  with  whom  we  have  to 
deal.  They  are  enforced  by  the  approval  of 
neighborhood  opinion.  They  constitute  the  chief 
force  for  the  preservation  of  order  and  for  the 
progress  which  society  makes. 

I  am  sure  that  nearly  everybody  in  this  com- 
pany will  remember  Emerson's  description  of  a 
child's  first  contact  with  society,  how  he  goes  out 
of  his  house  and  finds  a  policeman,  who  to  him 
represents  a  restraint,  the  social  restraint,  of  his 
community.  That  policeman  embodies  the  idea 
of  force  in  the  interest  of  order;  and  as  the  child 
grows  up,  he  gradually  enlarges  the  policeman 
until  the  policeman  becomes  the  Government.  As 
he  grows  older  still,  he  philosophizes  the  police- 
man, until  the  officer  represents  the  consent  of  the 
community  to  those  sacrifices  of  individual  lib- 
erty which  are  necessary  in  the  interest  of  the 
common  good. 

Now  that  state  of  mind,  which  exists  in  every 
community  and  in  every  individual,  is  being  vio- 
lently disturbed  by  our  withdrawal  of  large  num- 
bers of  young  men  from  their  homes,  from  their 
families,  from  their  social  organizations,  from 
[85] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

their  communities,  from  their  church  organiza- 
tions, from  all  the  various  affiliations  which  the 
young  men  have  made  as  a  part  of  their  social 
education. 

We  are  collecting  those  young  men  in  vast 
groups  and  subjecting  them  to  an  entirely  unac- 
customed discipline.  In  a  certain  sense,  we  are 
training  their  minds  to  an  entirely  new  set  of 
ideals.  We  are  sweeping  away  all  of  the  social 
pressures  to  which  they  have  become  accustomed, 
and  are  substituting  therefor  military  discipline 
during  that  portion  of  their  time  when  drill  and 
the  military  regime  are  necessarily  imposed  on 
their  lives.  And  we  are  taking  these  groups  of 
men  and  bringing  them  up  to  and  in  contact  with 
city  civilization  and  town  civilization. 

Now  a  large  part  of  these  young  men  have 
been  accustomed  to  city  life.  Some  of  them, 
however,  are  straight  from  the  country.  Some 
of  them  are  from  remote  parts  of  the  country, 
far  away  from  the  places  where  they  have  hith- 
erto lived,  away  from  the  people  whose  opinion 
has  hitherto  been  their  guide  and  control.  We 
are  surrounding  the  people  of  this  country  with 
an  entirely  new  population,  a  population  which 
is  not  integrated  with  its  life,  a  great  mass  of 
people  who  are  encamped  on  the  borders  of  a 
town  or  a  city  and  are  wholly  foreign  to  the  local 
feelings  and  sentiments  of  the  community. 

Now  that  presents  a  very  grave  problem  in 
dealing  with  human  beings.  It  presents  several 
[86] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

problems.  The  first  of  them  is :  What  are  those 
soldiers  going  to  do  to  the  towns,  and  what  are 
the  towns  going  to  do  to  the  soldiers? 

I  think  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  army  ever  be- 
fore assembled  in  the  history  of  the  world  has 
had  so  much  thought  given  and  so  much  labor 
performed  in  the  interest  of  its  social  organiza- 
tion. It  is  no  reflection  on  anybody  to  say  that 
the  ancient  method  of  assembling  an  army  was 
first  to  have  some  sort  of  inspiring  music  played 
through  the  street,  to  have  a  local  oratorical  out- 
burst on  the  subject  of  the  particular  cause  for 
which  the  army  was  desired,  to  have  young  men 
follow  the  music  and  then  be  taken  off  to  make 
their  own  camps  and  conditions,  and  with  that 
much  training  to  be  sent  to  the  battlefront. 

But  the  United  States  is  a  civilized  country. 
Nobody  realized  how  civilized  it  was  until  we  as- 
sembled this  army,  for  instantly  there  came  from 
all  parts  of  the  country  a  demand  that  this  army 
should  not  be  raised  as  armies  hitherto  had  been ; 
that  it  should  not  be  environed  as  armies  hitherto 
had  been,  but  that  such  arrangements  should  be 
made  as  would  insure  that  these  soldiers,  when 
actually  organized  into  an  army,  would  represent 
and  carry  out  the  very  highest  ideals  of  our 
civilization. 

In  the  second  place,  this  army  came  from  our 
country.  Everywhere  there  was  the  demand 
that  these  young  men,  whom  we  were  taking 
[87] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

from  their  homes  and  families,  from  wives  and 
children,  from  mothers,  sisters  and  intimates, 
these  young  men  whom  we  were  separating  from 
their  church  environments,  their  social  organiza- 
tions and  social  clubs — everywhere,  I  say,  there 
was  the  demand  that  they  should  come  back  with 
no  other  scars  than  those  won  in  honorable 
warfare! 

Now  the  accomplishment  of  that  task  is  not 
difficult,  but  it  requires  a  tremendous  amount  of 
comprehending  cooperation  and  sympathy,  and 
this  great  company  of  men  and  women  here  this 
morning  is  the  answer  to  that  need.  It  shows 
that  the  commercial  organizations  of  our  coun- 
try, bodies  like  the  Rotary  Clubs,  those  organiza- 
tions which  are  leaders  in  their  various  communi- 
ties, appreciate  the  demand  of  the  country  with 
regard  to  its  soldiers,  and  are  willing  to  supply 
the  social  basis  for  a  modern  civilized  army. 

America  has  learned,  I  think,  more  than  any 
other  country  about  the  life  of  adolescent  youths. 
There  is  no  other  country,  to  my  knowledge,  in 
which  the  task  has  been  so  thoroughly  done  as  it 
has  been  in  America  by  the  American  colleges 
and  higher  schools.  I  have  sometimes  been  rather 
skeptical  about  the  advantage  of  intercollegiate 
athletics.  It  has  seemed  to  me  to  lay  the  em- 
phasis on  the  wrong  place,  and  rather  to  over- 
emphasize the  development  of  the  athletic  as 
against  the  mental  in  the  boy. 

When  we  established  training  camps  for  young 
[88] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

officers,  the  American  high  schools  and  colleges 
poured  out  into  the  lap  of  this  Nation  the  finest 
body  of  material  for  the  rapid  manufacture  of 
officers  that  any  country  ever  assembled  since  the 
beginning  of  time.  And  they  came  to  us  not 
merely  with  trained  minds,  with  handsomely  de- 
veloped aptitudes  for  acquiring  new  habits  of 
thought,  but  they  came  to  us  with  finely  trained 
athletic  bodies,  and  with  the  American  spirit  of 
fair  play,  which,  if  not  born,  is  at  least  nurtured 
on  the  athletic  field.  If  we  can  do  for  the  boy 
in  the  training  camp  what  the  American  college 
has  done  for  the  boy  in  college  and  what  the 
American  high  school  has  done  for  the  boy  in 
the  high  school;  that  is  to  say,  if  we  can 
work  his  mind  and  work  his  body,  and  surround 
his  moments  of  recreation  and  leisure  with  such 
wholesome  opportunities  as  to  keep  him  from  be- 
ing diverted  and  turned  to  unwholesome  things, 
we  have  solved  the  problem. 

For  a  great  many  years  in  America  we  have 
been  struggling  almost  despondently  with  the 
problem  of  the  large  cities.  We  knew  that  the 
large  city  was  economically  and  industrially  more 
efficient.  We  knew  that  by  getting  people  close  to 
the  place  where  they  were  to  work,  getting  them  in 
large  groups,  we  multiplied  the  industrial  output 
of  the  individual.  We  knew  that  by  getting  peo- 
ple into  large  cities  we  were  able  to  extend  over 
a  wider  surface  the  so-called  conveniences  of 
modern  civilization ;  that  people  could  live  in  bet- 
[89] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

ter  houses ;  that  they  could  have  better  sanitation ; 
that  they  could  have  better  medical  care ;  that  they 
could  have  freer  access  to  public  libraries  and 
opportunities  for  culture;  that  they  could  have 
better  schools.  But  we  realized  that  we  paid  a 
price  for  the  city,  and  that  price  consisted  in  the 
tempestuous  and  heated  temptations  of  city  life, 
and  every  man  who  has  had  any  opportunity  to 
study  city  life  has  had  his  mind  more  or  less  held 
in  a  state  of  balance  between  its  advantages  and 
its  disadvantages. 

It  used  to  be  said  that  a  family  living  in  a  city 
ran  out  in  three  generations,  and  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  replenish  the  vitality  of  city-dwelling 
people  by  constant  drafts  upon  the  unspoiled  peo- 
ple of  the  countryside ;  and  that  was,  we  learned, 
because  of  the  vices  which  grew  up  in  cities,  and 
because  all  of  those  restraints  of  neighborhood 
opinion  were  gone.  A  boy  in  the  country  was 
known  to  everybody  of  his  neighborhood.  His 
misconduct  was  marked.  The  boy  in  the  city 
could  be  a  saint  in  the  first  ward  where  he  lived, 
and  a  scapegrace  in  the  tenth  ward,  without  any- 
body in  the  first  ward  discovering  it.  There  was 
an  absence  of  that  pressure  of  neighborhood 
opinion,  that  opportunity  to  cultivate  the  good 
opinion  of  old  neighbors,  which  was  evident  in 
the  countryside  where  conduct  was  more  obvious. 

Now,  for  a  long  time  we  tried  a  perfectly 
wrongheaded  process  about  the  city;  we  tried  to 
pass  laws  which  would  cure  all  these  ills  and  to 
[90] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

enforce  them  by  policemen.  I  do  not  mean  that 
we  ought  not  to  have  some  policemen,  but 
we  imagined  that  our  sole  salvation  lay  in  the 
passage  of  laws  and  in  the  employment  of  police- 
men. And  I  can  remember  when  I  was  mayor 
of  a  middle-Western  city,  that  every  now  and 
then  some  movement  would  get  its  start  to  have  a 
curfew  law  passed  in  that  city,  to  make  everybody 
go  to  bed  at  a  particular  time.  Certain  laws  of 
that  kind  were  passed,  and  some  Supreme  Courts 
held  that  they  were  unconstitutional,  and  some 
held  that  they  were  constitutional,  but  no  court 
had  any  right  to  pass  on  the  real  fact  involved, 
which  was  that  they  were  ineffective. 

Then  the  discovery  was  made  that  the  way  to 
overcome  the  temptations  and  vices  of  a  great 
city  was  to  offer  adequate  opportunity  for  whole- 
some recreation  and  enjoyment;  that  if  you 
wanted  to  get  a  firebrand  out  of  the  hand  of  a 
child  the  way  to  do  it  was  neither  to  club  the  child 
nor  to  grab  the  firebrand,  but  to  offer  in  exchange 
for  it  a  stick  of  candy! 

And  so  there  has  grown  up  in  America  this 
new  attitude,  which  finds  its  expression  in  public 
playgrounds,  in  the  organization  of  community 
amusements,  in  the  inculcation  throughout  the 
entire  body  of  young  people  in  the  community  of 
substantially  the  same  form  of  social  inducement 
which  the  American  college  in  modern  times  has 
substituted  for  the  earlier  system  of  social  re- 
straints. 

[91] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

And  now  that  we  have  these  great  bodies  of 
young  men  to  consider,  we  have  also  the  fa- 
cilities which  are  necessary  to  apply  to  the  task. 
We  have  organized  in  the  camps  themselves 
agencies  to  supply  athletic  opportunities,  whole- 
some recreation.  The  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  the  Knights  of  Columbus,  the  Train- 
ing Camp  Activities  Committee,  are  taking  up 
just  as  much  of  the  soldier's  unoccupied  leisure  as 
can  be  taken  up  by  the  inducement  process. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  other  side  of  it. 
These  boys  do  not  stay  in  the  camp  all  the 
time;  they  move  out  of  camp  into  the  nearby 
towns.  I  took  a  ride  some  two  or  three  weeks 
ago  along  nearly  the  entire  length  of  Long 
Island.  There  were  two  military  camps  on  Long 
Island  at  that  time,  the  so-called  "Rainbow  Divi- 
sion" and  Camp  Upton,  which  is  the  cantonment 
in  which  the  drafted  men  from  New  York  are 
being  trained.  Long  Island — at  least  the  part  I 
saw  of  it — is  about  ninety  miles  long,  and  it  was 
dotted  throughout  that  entire  ninety  miles  with 
men  in  uniform.  Every  little  village,  every  ham- 
let, every  small  town  and  large  town  had  soldiers 
scattered  through  its  streets  and  its  hotels  and 
throughout  all  the  places  of  entertainment  to  be 
found  there.  The  Chief  of  Staff,  who  was  rid- 
ing with  me,  remarked  that  soldiers  always  re- 
minded him  of  ants  in  the  directions  in  which 
they  traveled.  They  seemed  to  scatter  from  the 
[92] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

center  in  every  direction,  and  for  wholly  unex- 
pected and  unanticipated  distances. 

Now  that  is  what  we  have  to  face.  The  sol- 
diers of  these  camps,  in  their  days  off  and  their 
hours  off  and  in  their  moments  of  relaxation,  are 
going  to  scatter  through  all  of  the  cities  and 
towns  nearby.  The  railroads,  the  street  rail- 
roads, and  the  motor  cars  will  take  them  to  all  of 
those  centers  of  population.  Now  we  must  make 
the  advantages  in  these  towns  as  wholesome,  we 
must  make  the  inducements  to  wholesome  think- 
ing and  wholesome  living  just  as  fine  and  as  nu- 
merous as  we  can  possibly  make  them. 

And  in  order  to  do  that,  we  must  organize  every 
social  activity  in  these  towns.  With  that  thought 
in  view  we  must  have  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  of  the 
towns,  the  Y.  W.  C.  A.'s,  the  Masonic  orders,  the 
Elks,  the  Eagles,  the  churches — particularly  the 
churches  with  social  opportunities,  those  that 
have  large  rooms  where  they  can  have  gymnasi- 
ums or  sociables  and  receptions — even  the  homes, 
if  they  happen  to  be  near  enough  to  a  camp  to 
make  it  possible,  we  must  have  all  these  invite 
the  boys  in  and  give  them  contact  with  a  normal 
town  life  and  the  domestic  opportunity  which  they 
are  cut  off  from  by  reason  of  their  separation 
from  their  own  homes.  I  have  no  doubt  there 
are  many  examples  of  exactly  that  sort  of  thing 
going  on  in  this  country. 

Now,  you  gentlemen,  you  men  and  women,  are 
assembled  for  the  purpose  of  spreading  throturh- 
[98] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

out  the  communities  of  this  country  that  attitude 
toward  this  army,  and  encouraging  in  this  army 
that  attitude  toward  the  cities  of  this  country. 
It  is  a  tremendous  problem.  It  has  been  par- 
tially worked  out,  locally.  But  as  this  war  goes 
on  we  are  going  to  have  more  and  more  camps, 
more  and  more  soldiers,  and  one  set  will  go  and 
another  will  come. 

These  boys  are  going  to  France ;  they  are  going 
to  face  conditions  that  we  do  not  like  to  talk  about, 
that  we  do  not  like  to  think  about.  They  are  go- 
ing into  an  heroic  enterprise,  and  heroic  enter- 
prises involve  sacrifices.  I  want  them  armed;  I 
want  them  adequately  armed  and  clothed  by  their 
Government;  but  I  want  them  to  have  invisible 
armor  to  take  with  them.  I  want  them  to  have 
an  armor  made  up  of  a  set  of  social  habits  re- 
placing those  of  their  homes  and  communities,  a 
set  of  social  habits  and  a  state  of  social  mind 
born  in  the  training  camps,  a  new  soldier  state  of 
mind,  so  that  when  they  get  overseas  and  are 
removed  from  the  reach  of  our  comforting  and 
restraining  and  helpful  hand,  they  will  have  got- 
ten such  a  set  of  habits  as  will  constitute  a  moral 
and  intellectual  armor  for  their  protection  over- 
seas. 

You  are  the  makers  of  that  armor.  General 
Crozier  is  going  to  make  the  guns;  General 
Sharpe  is  going  to  make  the  clothes ;  but  the  in- 
visible suit  which  you  are  making,  this  attitude  of 
mind,  this  state  of  consciousness,  this  esprit  de 
[94] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

corps  which  will  not  tolerate  anything  unwhole- 
some, this  brand  of  righteousness,  if  I  may  speak 
of  it  as  such,  this  pride  that  they  ought  to  have 
in  being  American  soldiers  and  representing  the 
highest  ethical  type  of  a  modern  civilization — all 
this  you  are  manufacturing  in  your  armories, 
in  the  basements  of  churches,  the  lodge  rooms  of 
societies,  the  dinner  tables  of  private  homes,  the 
rooms  of  Young  Men's  and  Young  Women's 
Christian  Associations.  There  are  hospitals, 
houses,  all  manner  and  kinds  of  places,  where  the 
sound  consciousness  and  sound  mind  of  a  com- 
munity can  be  brought  into  contact,  in  a  whole- 
some and  inspiring  way,  with  the  soldier  group 
in  its  process  of  training. 

Now  when  this  is  all  over,  by  virtue  of  the 
work  which  this  committee  and  this  group  are 
doing,  and  are  going  to  do,  our  soldiers  will  come 
back  to  us  better  citizens,  not  merely  for  the  patri- 
otic heroism  in  which  they  have  been  engaged, 
but  because  of  this  lesson  of  social  values  which 
they  will  have  learned.  And  in  the  meantime  each 
city  in  this  country  will  have  gotten,  I  think,  a 
greater  start  toward  a  realization  of  the  com- 
munity responsibility  for  the  lives  of  people  who 
live  in  it,  and  near  it,  a  higher  realization  of  the 
value  of  these  experiences  which  we  are  putting 
into  operation,  and  a  stronger  sense  of  its  own 
greatness,  by  what  it  has  done  for  the  stranger 
within  its  gates,  than  it  has  ever  had  before. 

So  that  I  see  in  this  work,  not  merely  a  con- 
[95] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

tribution  to  the  strength  of  our  Nation,  great  as 
that  is — and  I  may  say  that  an  army  is  strong 
just  as  its  individual  components  are  strong,  and 
a  sick  soldier,  whether  physically  sick  or  men- 
tally sick,  is  a  detriment  rather  than  an  asset  to 
an  army — this  work  is  going  to  contribute  not 
only  to  the  strength  of  the  army,  making  it 
vigorous  and  sound  physically,  mentally  and 
morally,  but  it  is  going  to  advance  the  solution  of 
that  vexing  and  perplexing  and  troublesome  city 
question  which  has  for  so  many  years  hung  heavy 
on  the  conscience  of  our  country. 

And  when  the  war  is  over,  and  our  boys  come 
back,  and  our  cities  have  strengthened  themselves 
by  their  cooperation,  and  we  have  throughout 
the  country  the  common  feeling  that  we  all 
helped  and  shared  the  pride  of  having  partici- 
pated in  this  great  undertaking  and  achievement, 
then  we  will  find  that  for  the  after-war  recon- 
struction, for  this  great  remedial  process  as  to 
which  none  of  us  knows  much,  and  of  which  most 
of  us  are  almost  afraid  to  think,  our  people  are 
sound  and  virile  and  intelligent.  We  will  find  that 
American  public  opinion  has  been  strengthened 
and  made  more  wholesome  and  comprehending, 
that  America  is  truly  a  more  united  people, 
and  that  it  understands  itself  better  than  it  ever 
did  in  its  history. 

Everybody  in  America  wants  to  help.  Most 
people  in  America  want  to  do  some — well,  I  do 
not  want  to  say  that — but  many  people  in 
[96] 


INVISIBLE  ARMOR 

America  want  to  do  some  individual  thing.  I 
suppose  I  am  just  like  everybody  else.  I  would 
like  to  go  "over  the  top."  I  would  like  to  storm 
a  rampart.  I  would  like  to  grab  a  flag  which  was 
shot  down  and  raise  it  up  and  go  forward  with  it, 
and  feel  that  I  had  taken  Old  Glory  where  it 
ought  to  be.  That  is  the  heroic  appeal,  but  one 
of  the  great  difficulties  of  life  is  that  we  fail  to 
realize  that  the  master  heroisms  of  social  prog- 
ress are  aggregations  of  inconspicuous  acts  of 
self-sacrifice. 

Now  this  is  the  opportunity  for  us  to  show  the 
master  heroism  of  this  age.  If  you  will  im- 
press that  upon  the  people  of  your  communities, 
I  think  they  will  respond,  and  they  will  feel,  not 
perhaps  the  spiritual  exaltation  that  comes  from 
carrying  the  flags,  but  they  will  feel  that  they  are 
really  builders  in  the  final  and  higher  civilization, 
the  civilization  of  justice  and  opportunity,  and  of 
high  thinking  and  high  doing  which  we  pray  is 
to  be  the  permanent  state  of  civilized  man  after 
this  terrible  visitation  and  tragic  calamity  is 
safely  passed. 


[97] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

I  do  not  love  war;  yet  there  are  some  things  dearer  than 
life.  Would  we  call  back  the  Continental  Army;  would 
we  send  Lafayette  back  to  France;  would  we  take  the 
sword  of  Washington  out  of  his  hands  and  break  it  over 
our  kneef 

MASS  MEETING,  THE  HIPPODROME,  CLEVELAND, 
OHIO,  OCTOBER  17,  1917. 

EVERYBODY  in  this  audience  will  realize 
my  feelings  in  attempting  to  make  a  speech 
on  this  lot  and  under  this  tent.  I  look  back  over 
nearly  twenty  years  and  remember  how  often  this 
tent  has  been  filled  with  the  people  of  Cleveland  as 
they  discussed  among  themselves,  sometimes  in 
the  words  of  the  speaker  on  the  platform,  some- 
times of  the  questioner  in  the  audience,  but  always 
in  a  lively  way,  matters  of  domestic  concern.  It 
has  also  been  used  in  national  campaign  discus- 
sions. But  to-night,  I  think,  is  the  first  time, 
surely  the  first  time  within  my  knowledge,  when 
the  tent  has  been  used  by  somebody  who  came 
from  Washington  to  tell  the  people  of  Cleveland 
something  about  a  war  in  which  our  great  country 
is  engaged. 

It  is  no  small  task  to  turn  the  attention  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  away  from  the  op- 
[98] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

portunities  which  they  have  enjoyed  and  culti- 
vated in  peace  to  the  sterner  demands  of  war.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  each  one  of  you  in  your  vari- 
ous business  occupations  has  found  that  this  war 
has  somewhat  changed  the  relations  which  you 
sustain  to  other  people,  and  that  your  business 
sustains  to  other  people ;  but  in  Washington  every 
eye  and  every  ear  and  every  heart  is  devoted  all 
the  time  to  a  task  larger  beyond  any  comparison 
than  any  task  this  nation  has  yet  undertaken,  and 
I  want  to  describe  to  you,  if  I  can,  in  very  brief 
phrase,  something  of  the  size  and  character  and 
purpose  and  hope  of  that  task. 

When  I  went  away  from  Cleveland  to  Wash- 
ington, you  may  recall,  peace  reigned  in  the 
United  States,  though  war  raged  abroad.  Wash- 
ington, a  city  of  very  great  beauty,  was  a  quiet 
and  reposeful  place,  and  yet  the  very  night  that  I 
left  Cleveland  to  go  to  Washington  a  disturbance 
broke  out  on  the  Mexican  border  which  required 
us  to  summon  a  military  force  to  patrol  that  bor- 
der and  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  our 
people  in  the  States  of  Texas,  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico.  And  for  some  months  we  were  raising 
soldiers,  the  National  Guard,  and  mobilizing  our 
army  on  that  border  until,  finally,  we  had  an 
adequate  force  there  to  preserve  order  between 
the  turbulent  forces  of  the  Republic  of  Mexico 
and  ourselves.  We  had  a  small  army.  A  small 
army  was  enough.  Then  the  Mexican  situation 
seemed  to  pass  away,  and  our  relation  to  this 
[99] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

struggle  across  the  water  became  more  and  more 
serious  and  more  and  more  difficult.  We  began 
to  be  drawn  into  that  struggle.  It  did  not  mat- 
ter what  our  own  motives  and  desires  were;  it 
did  not  matter  that  we  were  following  a  policy  of 
neutrality  and  friendship  to  all  the  belligerents  in 
that  contest;  it  did  not  matter  that  we  were  a 
peace-loving  people;  that  we  had  devoted  our- 
selves for  sevenscore  years  to  the  building  up  of 
a  civilization  which  would  do  away  with  the  neces- 
sity of  war  and  establish  among  men  processes 
for  the  working  out  of  international  difficulties 
which  would  not  need  war  as  a  means  of  arbitra- 
ment— all  that  made  no  difference.  Inevitably, 
as  though  some  powerful  magnet  were  drawing 
at  the  very  heart  and  vitals  of  this  country,  each 
day  seemed  to  bring  us  closer  to  this  terrible  thing 
that  was  going  on  on  the  other  side.  No  man  in 
America  wished  to  go  to  war.  From  the  Presi- 
dent down  to  the  humblest  citizen  in  all  this  repub- 
lic our  only  purpose,  our  only  hope,  our  only 
prayer  was  that  we  might  be  permitted  to  be  a 
strong  and  powerful  friend  to  all  of  those  bel- 
ligerents and  when  the  war  was  over,  help  to 
reconstruct  and  adjust  our  civilization  with  a 
fairer  hope  and  promise  for  men  everywhere. 
We  entertained  that  view,  as  you  all  know,  and 
yet,  day  by  day,  the  situation  became  more  diffi- 
cult. 

Now,  just  what  was  the  situation  ?     We  found 
that  our  rights  were  being  trespassed  upon.     We 
[100] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

found  that  our  present  adversary — I  shall 
refer  to  it  always  as  the  German  Government, 
and  I  draw  a  sharp  distinction  between  any  gov- 
ernment and  its  people  where  that  government  is 
an  autocracy.  If  you  speak  of  a  government 
which  is  a  democracy,  you  include  its  people, 
because  there  the  people  is  the  government;  but 
when  you  refer  to  a  government  which  is  an 
autocracy,  then  you  draw  a  sharp  line  between 
the  government  and  the  people,  because  the  form 
of  government  gives  the  governing  function  to  a 
few  or  a  class.  We  found  that  our  present  ad- 
versary, the  German  Government,  was  enlarging 
the  scope  of  its  activities  by  pressing  its  lawless 
conduct  upon  the  shoulders  of  neutrals,  friend 
and  foe  alike,  and  we  found  that  the  rights  of 
the  United  States  were  being  more  and  .more 
seriously  menaced.  We  still  hoped  for  peace. 
Our  President  wrote  notes  of  protest;  he  wrote 
notes  of  pleading  protest,  many  people  believed, 
and  up  to  the  very  last  hour  he  looked  with  a  deep 
devotion  upon  the  ideal  of  peace  and  the  hope 
that  we  could  remain,  as  I  have  said,  a  peaceful 
and  powerful  friend  of  all  these  people. 

International  law  is  a  system  of  agreements 
among  nations  made  for  the  purpose  of  abating 
the  horrors  of  warfare,  and  the  progress  of 
civilization  consists,  so  far  as  nations  and  their 
rights  are  concerned,  in  constant  improvement  in 
international  law,  and  in  constant  amelioration  or 
betterment  of  the  horrors  and  rigors  of  war. 
[101] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

The  progress  of  mankind  is  marked  by  the  extent 
to  which  nations  agree  to  allow  the  horrors  to  be 
visited  upon  the  combatants  alone  and  to  pro- 
tect the  lives  and  property  of  innocent  and  non- 
combatant  members,  either  of  a  belligerent  coun- 
try or  a  neutral  country. 

When  men  started  out  to  fight  it  was  the  prac- 
tice of  a  successful  tribe  of  savages  to  kill  all  the 
men,  women  and  children  in  the  hostile  tribe; 
but  after  a  while  that  was  found  to  be  wrong. 
The  moral  sentiments  rebelled  against  that  prac- 
tice, and  gradually,  step  by  step,  new  rules  came 
into  existence,  and  those  rules  finally,  at  the  out- 
break of  this  European  War,  made  it  very  plain 
and  very  clear — it  was  written  in  all  the  books — 
that  the  struggle  of  war  should  be  limited  to  the 
actual  armies ;  that  it  was  fair  and  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  war  for  one  army  to  attempt  to 
disable  another  army,  but  a  civilian  popula- 
tion, not  armed  and  not  taking  part  in  the  con- 
test, should  not  be  subject  to  attack,  and 
neutral  people,  people  who  were  not  in  the  war, 
were  also  free  from  danger  and  free  from  peril. 
The  difference  between  civilized  people  and  sav- 
age people  consisted  in  the  extent  to  which  people 
recognized  those  rules.  When  we  came  to  apply 
the  established  rules  of  international  law  to  the 
conduct  of  the  German  Government,  we  found 
that  at  the  very  outset,  in  order  to  get  a  momen- 
tary advantage  over  their  surprised  and  unpre- 
pared adversaries,  the  German  Government 
[102] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

had  ordered  the  German  army  to  march  across 
the  frontiers  of  Luxemburg  and  Belgium  and  to 
invade  two  peaceful  neutral  countries  which  were 
not  involved  in  the  war  and  had  no  part  or  parcel 
in  the  dispute. 

Now,  I  shall  not  undertake  to  arouse  your  feel- 
ings about  what  happened  in  Belgium,  and  yet  I 
think  that  this  is  a  fair  thing  to  say :  Since  the 
days  of  savage  warfare  by  wholly  untrained  and 
barbarous  peoples — nay,  since  the  days  of  war- 
fare by  cannibals — I  think  there  is  no  parallel  to 
some  of  the  things  that  were  done  in  some  of  the 
cities  of  Belgium.  That  little  country,  once  so 
bright  and  beautiful,  so  gay  and  carefree — for 
Belgium,  you  know,  was  a  little  France,  and  Brus- 
sels was  in  Belgium  a  kind  of  little  Paris — too 
small  to  have  any  aggressive  intentions  upon  any 
other  nation;  too  civilized  to  have  any  sort  of 
ambition  to  attack  anybody  else;  a  little,  beautiful 
nation,  made  up  of  a  fine  and  cultured  people  that 
gave  itself  to  the  arts  and  crafts  and  beauties  of 
life  and  to  rich  manufactures — that  little  state  of 
Belgium,  apparently  so  secure  from  disaster 
of  any  kind,  and  chiefly  from  the  disaster 
of  war,  has  been  converted,  by  the  invasion  of  the 
German  army,  in  many  of  its  places,  to  heaps  of 
smoldering  ruins.  Not  military  places  only,  but 
the  churches  that  used  to  be  filled  with  the  con- 
gregations that  went  on  Sundays  to  worship,  are 
now  simply  smoked  walls  and  ruins.  The 
sacred  pictures  and  other  beautiful  works  of  art 
[103] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 


that  decorated  those  churches  are  all  defaced, 
wrecked,  as  a  result  of  artillery  fire.  The  people 
of  Belgium — and  I  ask  you  to  remember  that 
they  were  innocent  of  offense,  just  as  innocent  as 
you  and  I — the  people  of  Belgium  had  placed 
over  them  a  military  government.  Thousands 
of  them  were  taken  out  and  lined  up  against  walls 
and  shot,  whole  villages,  cities,  were  set  on  fire; 
soldiers  invaded  the  houses  and  drove  out,  not 
men  with  guns  in  hand,  but  all  the  occu- 
pants, men,  women  and  children,  while  other 
soldiers  outside  slew  them  with  the  sword  or  with 
the  gun,  until  of  three  cities  it  is  true  to  say  that 
not  one  soul  was  left.  The  destruction  reminds 
us  of  those  stories  in  ancient  history  when  a  sav- 
age adversary  leveled  the  city  to  the  ground  and 
sowed  the  place  where  it  once  stood  with  salt  in 
order  to  show  that  no  future  civilization  was  to 
be  built  there.  And  these  were  innocent  people ! 
These  were  people  who  had  done  nothing  except 
to  live  in  a  country  standing,  by  the  accident  of 
fate,  between  the  autocratic  government  of  Ger- 
many and  its  surprise  attack  upon  Paris.  Then, 
after  a  little  while,  we  heard  that  men  in  Belgium 
were  separated  from  their  families  and  taken  into 
involuntary  servitude  in  Germany,  so  that  of  the 
nen  who  were  left  alive,  the  able-bodied  ones  have 
been  taken  away  from  their  families,  away  from 
their  homes,  and  their  church,  and  have  been  car- 
ried off  in  trainloads  into  the  interior  of  Ger- 
[104] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

many  to  work  in  German  munition  factories  and 
aid  the  German  army. 

Now,  I  do  not  complain,  I  would  not  complain 
if  the  German  Government  were  drafting  its  own 
man-power,  or  drafting  the  man-power  of  an  ad- 
versary whom  it  had  conquered  in  war,  but  I  am 
trying  to  picture  to  you  the  character  of  our 
adversary's  military  operations;  and,  in  order  to 
have  you  clearly  understand  it,  I  want  you  to 
realize  that  the  Belgian  people  were  wholly  with- 
out offense;  that  they  have  been  accused  of  no 
offense  by  anybody,  and  yet,  in  spite  of  that,  such 
was  the  character  of  war  imposed  by  the  German 
Government  that  these  slaughters  and  burnings, 
these  sums  of  money  exacted  by  way  of  tribute, 
these  depredations,  and  this  involuntary  servi- 
tude were  visited  upon  them.  But  the  story  is 
told,  and  it  comes  from  excellent  sources,  that  so 
stout  is  the  heart  of  the  Belgian,  so  patriotic 
is  he,  so  keenly  does  he  resent  the  things 
that  have  been  visited  upon  him,  that,  although 
the  German  Government  has  taken  away  thou- 
sands of  them  in  trains  and  put  them  into  work- 
shops in  Germany,  it  has  had  to  bring  them  back, 
starved,  to  die  at  home  rather  than  keep  them  in 
Germany  when  they  refused  to  work  under  an 
unjust  government  that  had  tyrannized  in  so 
despotic  a  fashion  over  them.  Belgium  really 
presents  a  wonderful  picture.  It  is  a  story  of 
patriotism  that  we  might  well  imitate ;  a  patriot- 
ism exemplified  best  in  its  noble  king;  exempli- 
[105] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

fied  in  its  courageous  prelate,  Cardinal  Mercier, 
who,  although  held  in  prison,  as  it  were,  by  the 
captors  of  his  country,  has  never  hesitated  for  a 
moment  to  tell  his  captors  of  the  iniquity  of  their 
occupation. 

We  saw  what  went  on  there,  and  then  we  saw 
what  went  on  in  Servia ;  we  saw  what  went  on  in 
Poland;  we  saw  great  stretches  of  this  world  of 
ours  so  laid  waste  that  a  year  ago  there  was  not 
in  many  parts  of  what  used  to  be  Poland  a  single 
child  still  living  under  the  age  of  five  years. 
Babies  all  gone !  The  heel  of  this  kind  of  war — 
this  ruthless  war,  as  it  had  come  to  be  called — 
trod  upon  that  land  until  all  the  child  life  was 
stamped  out,  and  men  and  women  who  were  able 
to  get  away  from  the  advancing  power  of  the 
conqueror  fled  to  the  woods  and  lived  on  roots 
and  leaves  of  trees  and  herbs,  or  starved  to  death, 
and  over  Europe  now  there  are  places  tens  of 
thousands  of  miles  in  area  and  extent  where  the 
bleached  bones  of  men  lie  who  in  their  lives  were 
guilty  of  no  wrong,  no  aggression,  who  were  not 
partners  in  this  conflict,  who  had  done  nothing 
to  bring  it  on,  and  whose  very  nations  were  not 
engaged  in  the  war ! 

Well,  all  of  that  went  on,  and  we  watched  it 
with  amazement  and  with  horror,  and  yet  we 
said  to  ourselves :  "We  are  separated  from  it  all 
by  an  ocean  three  thousand  miles  wide."  The 
great  founder  of  our  country,  George  Washing- 
ton, said  to  us  that  we  must  refrain  from  en- 
[106] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

tangling  alliances.  The  founders  of  this  repub- 
lic taught  us  that  our  destiny  was  here  and  not 
there;  and  so  there  still  seemed  to  be  a  lack  of 
personal  occasion  in  all  this  to  us.  Then  we  be- 
gan to  consider  the  aggressions  upon  our  own 
rights.  Is  there  anybody  in  this  audience  who 
has  forgotten  how  he  felt  on  the  day  when  the 
Lusitania  was  sunk — the  fairest  ship  in  the  world, 
filled  with  passengers  going  abroad  on  their  own 
business,  protected  by  every  line  of  international 
law?  Germany  herself  afterwards  admitted  that 
the  destruction  of  that  ship  was  against  and  in 
contravention  of  the  Law  of  Nations.  Not 
merely  international  law  written  by  England  or 
France  or  America,  but  their  own  book  on  inter- 
national law,  written  by  a  German  authority,  pro- 
tected the  innocent  travelers  upon  that  ship.  Yet, 
as  she  sailed  across  the  sea,  carrying  this  precious 
freight  of  men,  women  and  children,  she  was  sud- 
denly and  stealthily  set  upon  by  a  submarine, 
sunk  in  an  hour,  and  on  the  bottom  of  the  sea 
where  so  many  secrets  lie,  there  lie  some  things 
that  are  not  secrets !  There  are  the  bones  of  your 
fellow-citizens,  men,  women  and  children,  who 
lie  there,  eloquent  forever  against  a  nation  which, 
in  order  to  carry  out  an  unrighteous  cause,  recks 
not  of  the  lives  of  the  innocent,  but  is  willing  to 
slay  and  to  slaughter  in  order  that  it  may  emerge 
in  bloody  triumph  to  an  unholy  end. 

Not  very  long  ago  I  heard  Consul  Frost,  who 
was  our  consul,  as  you  may  remember,  at  Queens- 
[107] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

town,  describe  his  duties  when  the  Lusitania 
sank.  The  word  came  to  his  office  that  the 
great  ship  had  gone  to  the  bottom  and  that  the 
work  of  rescue  was  on.  He  went  down  to  the 
shore  and  spent  days  and  nights  there,  caring  for 
such  persons  as  could  be  rescued,  and  he  formed 
a  corps  to  watch  by  the  seaside  and  gather  up 
the  bodies  of  those  who  were  washed  ashore. 
For  some  four  or  five  days  they  were  kept  busy 
and  each  wave  that  came  up  brought  its  toll  with 
it,  until,  finally,  there  were  no  morgues,  nor  hos- 
pitals, left  in  which  to  put  the  bodies.  And  as 
the  Atlantic,  which  ordinarily  carried  the  peace- 
ful commerce  of  our  country  with  England  kept 
rolling  in,  those  days  and  those  nights,  carrying 
the  bodies  of  American  and  English  and  French 
dead,  all  they  could  do  was  to  take  them  out 
and  pile  them  like  cord-wood  on  the  dock,  until 
there  was  a  pile  of  human  cord- wood  some  hun- 
dred feet  long  and  nine  or  ten  layers  high  to  show 
the  savagery  of  that  slaying.  And  yet,  what  did  we 
say  about  it?  All  we  said  was:  "It  is  not  possible 
that  anybody  wanted  to  do  that.  There  must  have 
been  some  mistake.  It  must  have  been  some  mis- 
understood order.  It  is  not  human."  We  said  to 
the  German  Government:  "We  protest  against 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  We  call  your  at- 
tention to  the  provisions  of  international  law 
which  prescribe  that  no  merchant  ship,  no  un- 
armed ship,  can  be  sunk,  no  matter  whom  she  be- 
longs to,  without  giving  her  crew  and  her  pas- 
[108] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

sengers  time  and  opportunity  to  escape  to  a  safe 
place."  And  the  German  Government  sent  us 
word,  ''Yes ;  we  recognize  that  principle,"  and  in 
solemn  phrase  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  the  Ger- 
man Chancellor,  under  the  direction,  doubtless, 
of  his  imperial  master,  gave  Germany's  pledge 
that  it  would  not  repeat  that  deed,  that  unarmed 
ships  would  not  be  sunk,  unless  they  either  resisted 
or  tried  to  get  away,  until  the  ordinary  visitation, 
search  and  opportunity  of  escape  to  the  crew 
and  the  passengers  had  been  afforded.  That 
seemed  a  great  victory  for  us.  People  every- 
where said  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  had  won  a  diplomatic  victory  and  had 
rescued  for  civilization  a  great  domain  in  inter- 
national law.  Yet  how  delusive  and  how  de- 
ceitful our  fancied  security  was.  Six  weeks 
after  we  got  the  solemn  promise  of  the  German 
Government  on  that  subject  another  ship  was 
sunk,  and  some  nine  or  ten  Americans  were  sunk 
with  it.  And  then  one  ship  and  another  was 
sunk.  When  the  first  one  went  down  the  Ger- 
man Government  sent  us  word:  "Yes;  we  dis- 
avow that  act,  and  we  will  rebuke  the  commander 
of  the  U-boat  who  did  it" ;  and  yet  every  now  and 
then  another  went  down.  You  remember  the 
Sussex,  the  Channel  ship,  that  was  sunk  in  the 
same  way.  We  protested,  and  they  promised. 

And  then,  finally,  in  February,  1917,  this  per- 
fectly incredible  thing  happened:  The  German 
Government  sent  us  word  that  from  then  on  it 
[109] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

intended  to  wage  ruthless  warfare  by  U-boats; 
that  it  had  marked  out  on  the  space  of  the  great 
deep  certain  areas  in  which  it  would  not  permit 
any  ship  to  go;  that  there  were  certain  lanes  of 
the  seas  into  which  we  could  send  our  ships  and 
they  would  not  attack  them,  and  that  we  might 
send  one  ship  a  week  to  England  if  it  followed  a 
prescribed  course  and  was  painted  like  a  barber's 
pole.  And  the  German  Chancellor,  Von  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg,  made  this  statement  in  the 
Reichstag:  That  he  had  resisted  the  establish- 
ment of  ruthless  warfare  because  he  did  not  be- 
lieve Germany  was  ready  for  it,  but  that  he  now 
believed  Germany  was  ready  for  it,  and,  there- 
fore, he  was  in  favor  of  it.  In  other  words,  a 
solemn  promise — not  a  promise  to  give  anything ; 
not  a  promise  that  appealed  to  our  greed  or  our 
pride,  but  a  promise  made  in  the  interest  of  hu- 
manity and  of  human  life,  and  of  the  protection 
of  the  innocent,  and  of  the  observance  of  law — 
that  promise  was  given  to  us,  not  because  it  was 
intended  to  be  kept,  but  merely  in  order  that  the 
men  who  intended  to  slaughter  might  have  time 
to  manufacture  and  sharpen  more  instruments  of 
execution.  There  was  only  one  thing  to  do — or 
two,  perhaps :  We  could  yieldt  or  we  could  fight ! 
And  in  all  likelihood  yielding  would  simply  post- 
pone the  fight.  Can  anybody  imagine  what 
would  have  happened  in  this  world  if  Germany, 
the  German  Government,  had  been  able  to  beat 
the  Allies  and  had  at  its  command  the  armies  of 
[110] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

Europe  and  the  fleet  of  England?  Just  place 
yourself,  now,  in  the  position  of  the  Kaiser.  It 
is  an  unpleasant  invitation.  I  think  he  must 
have  dreams  at  night. 

I  do  not  love  war.  I  look  forward  to  the  day 
when  war  will  be  a  reminiscence  of  an  evil  day 
and  of  a  half-progressed  civilization.  Surely 
this  earth  that  yields  so  bountifully  its  riches  was 
meant  for  the  children  of  men  to  enjoy,  as  an 
opportunity  of  improvement  to  us,  and  not  a 
place  of  a  mutual  slaughter.  I  do  not  enjoy  the 
idea  of  war,  and  yet  there  are  some  things  dearer 
than  life.  Our  fathers  fought  from  1776  to  1783 
to  establish  freedom.  Would  we  call  back  the 
Continental  Army?  Would  we  send  Lafayette 
back  to  France — and  Rochambeau?  Would  we 
take  Washington's  sword  out  of  his  hand  and 
break  it  over  our  knee,  and  say:  "Don't  do  that. 
We  would  rather  live  forever  slaves  to  a  tyran- 
nous government  than  have  a  fight  about  it?" 
Would  we  call  back  any  of  the  true  wars  that 
have  been  fought  for  principle  and  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  right  in  this  world?  No!  And  to- 
night, when  we  are  in  this  war,  there  isn't  a  man 
in  America  who  has  inherited  any  of  the  spirit  of 
the  founders  of  this  government,  or  caught  any  of 
the  inspiration  of  liberty  and  freedom ;  there  isn't 
a  man  who  loves  his  children  and  wants  them  to 
have  a  chance,  who  does  not  believe  that  this 
war  must  be  fought  to  a  finish;  by  that  I  do 
not  mean  fought  to  an  end,  but  fought  to  a  finish, 
[111] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

and  that  finish  must  be  an  absolute  victory  over 
any  power  existing  in  the  world  that  can  visit 
another  such  catastrophe  upon  the  human  race. 
God  didn't  make  many  cowards  when  he  made 
America.  I  don't  know  where  to  find  any.  I 
have  gone  from  one  end  of  this  country  to  an- 
other. I  have  visited  the  boys  in  the  camps.  I 
have  seen  their  mothers  visiting  them,  and  I  have 
seen  those  heroic  and  spartan  American  mothers 
looking  with  pride  and  love  and  affection  upon 
their  uniformed  soldier  boys,  turning  aside 
now  and  then  to  wipe  away  a  tear,  but 
never  saying  "Turn  back."  I  have  seen  our 
manufacturers  changed  from  one  occupation  to 
another  in  order  that  the  great  material  resources 
of  this  country  might  be  mobilized  to  sus- 
tain our  boys  at  the  front.  I  have  seen  our 
government  at  Washington  cooperating  with 
the  representatives  of  Labor  and  of  Capital, 
both  of  them  filled  with  patriotism,  in  order  that 
the  sweetness  of  our  national  life  might  be  pre- 
served and  the  full  mobilization  of  all  of  its 
forces  brought  about.  I  have  seen  consideration 
given  to  the  lives  of  women  and  children  in  work- 
shops and  factories,  the  hours  of  labor  of  men  in 
certain  occupations  shortened — all  to  the  end 
that  we  might  build  up  a  strong  and  virile  people 
here  at  home  while  this  war  is  going  on  to 
strengthen  our  boys  at  the  front.  And  it  is 
highly  important  that  that  should  be,  for,  while 
our  boys  are  making  the  world  abroad  safe  for 
[112] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

democracy,  we  must  make  at  home  democracy 
safe  for  the  world. 

They  are  forming  everywhere,  a  million 
strong!  They  are  going  across  the  sea  to  fight 
your  fight  and  my  fight.  They  are  not  going 
over  to  conquer  anybody  else's  country.  They 
are  not  going  over  to  impose  an  indemnity  on 
anybody.  They  are  not  going  over  to  slaughter 
women  and  children.  They  are  not  going  over 
to  bring  back  a  long  list  of  captives  to  put  into  our 
workshops  and  factories.  They  are  going  over 
to  rewrite  the  Declaration  of  Independence! 
They  are  going  over  to  carry  into  effect  the  mes- 
sage of  freedom  which  America  has  already  dis- 
seminated throughout  the  world !  And  they  ask  us, 
you  and  me,  to  do  our  share  as  they  do  their 
share.  They  do  not,  all  of  them,  perhaps,  un- 
derstand the  intricacies  of  this  philosophical  con- 
flict. They  may  not  know  the  details  of  the 
atrocities  which  the  German  Government  has 
performed  or  the  fearful  injuries  it  has  inflicted 
upon  civilization.  They  may  not  know  what 
Thomas  Jefferson  said  about  Democracy,  or  what 
Nietzsche  said  about  Power,  but  they  were  born 
in  this  country,  or  have  acquired  citizenship  here, 
and  they  have  caught  the  subtle  effluvium  of 
patriotism  and  of  freedom.  They  are  going  over 
to  enter  the  mouth  of  hell !  They  are  going  over 
to  go  through  the  gates  of  death !  They  are  go- 
ing over  where  the  very  worst  that  science  can  do 
for  human  destruction  has  been  perfected.  Long, 
[119] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

sleepless,  watchful  nights  in  the  trenches  are  ahead 
of  them — death  ahead  of  some  of  them.  They  are 
going  over  to  give  all  they  have  in  order  that  you 
and  I  and  those  who  come 'after  us  and  men 
everywhere  may  live  in  a  land  of  opportunity  and 
under  a  reign  of  justice !  Oh,  my  fellow  citizens, 
suppose  a  soldier  came  in  here  and  said  to  you: 
"Good  people,  I  have  been  selected  to  go  off  and 
hazard  my  life  for  you.  I  would  like  to  have  a 
coat,  and  shoes,  and  a  hat,  and  a  gun ;  I  would  like 
to  have  a  gas  mask;  I  would  like  to  have  equip- 
ment to  make  my  task  as  safe  as  possible."  Every 
one  in  this  audience  would  empty  his  pockets  and 
pour  all  that  he  had  into  the  hat  in  order  that  the 
soldier  might  have  everything  that  he  needed  for 
his  comfort  and  safety.  Women  would  take  their 
jewels  and  the  men  their  money  to  decorate  him 
as  a  hero. 

Instead  of  coming,  he  is  training  at  Chillicothe 
and  Montgomery  and  at  all  the  camps  in  this  coun- 
try. He  is  marching  by  the  moonlight  and  get- 
ting ready  to  fight  your  fight — and  I  am  coming 
in  his  place.  Just  for  a  moment  I  represent  him 
as  an  advocate  to  you.  I  am  coming  to  ask  you 
to  clothe  him  and  feed  him,  to  pay  his  railroad 
fare,  to  carry  him  across  the  ocean,  and  to  put  a 
gun  in  his  hand.  I  am  asking  you  to  give  him  a 
chance  to  live,  to  come  back  to  us  with  victory 
in  his  hand — victory  for  justice  and  right  in  the 
world.  And  he  will  do  it !  When  this  campaign 
is  over  I  want  the  German  Emperor  to  have  a 
[114] 


THE  CHALLENGE  TO  AMERICA 

message  from  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
not  written  in  a  bank,  nor  written  in  some  special 
select  room  here  and  there,  but  written  by  the 
lamp  light  in  the  humble  homes  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  and  I  want  that  word  to 
read:  "Sir  Emperor,  we  have  sent  over  to  you, 
by  special  messenger,  this  message:  that 
the  American  people  are  marching  a  million 
strong  to  join  your  adversaries  and  to  put 
an  end  to  your  unjust  warfare.  They  have  come 
at  our  bidding  to  rescue  the  human  race  from 
your  aggression,  and  we  are  back  of  them  with 
our  hands,  with  our  hearts,  with  our  money.  We 
are  piling  up  mountains  of  dollars  in  order  that 
they  may  use  them  to  get  at  you  and  your 
army  until  you  finally  yield  the  palm  to  justice 
and  are  willing  to  live  in  this  world,  as  everybody 
else  ought  to  live :  with  a  just  and  due  regard  to 
the  rights  of  others  and  without  a  willingness  to 
sacrifice  the  innocent  to  an  unholy  ambition." 


[115] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

We  have  joined  hands  with  free  men  everywhere,  that 
we  way  turn  over  a  new  page  in  the  book  of  history. 
They  will  find  written  with  the  finger  of  America  the 
message  that  unrighteousness  shall  not  prevail. 

TENT  MEETING,  CLEVELAND,  OHIO, 
OCTOBER  17,  1917. 

THIS  is  a  strange  scene.  For  a  good  many 
years  we  have  met  on  peaceful  missions, 
seeking  in  one  way  or  another  to  secure  here  an 
ideal  city,  and  we  have  discussed  in  a  calm  and  un- 
troubled atmosphere  our  domestic  problems,  with- 
out the  thought  ever  crossing  our  minds  that  the 
time  might  come  when  this  great  nation  would 
be  involved  in  war  and  the  populations  of 
our  great  cities  would  be  assembled  to  hear  dis- 
cussions of  military  preparations.  Outside  of 
our  own  war — our  Civil  War — and  the  Spanish 
War,  which,  while  a  brilliant  exploit  of  arms  in 
a  worthy  cause,  was  relatively  a  small  endeavor, 
the  very  genius  of  our  people  seems  to  dedicate 
our  history  to  peace.  And  I  suppose  that  if  an 
inquiry  had  been  made  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  prior  to  1914  as  to  the  possibility  of  a 
world  war,  the  judgment  would  have  been  sub- 
[116] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

stantially  unanimous  that,  in  the  progress  of  civ- 
ilization, the  possibility  of  world-wide  war  had 
been  obliterated. 

In  the  space  of  three  years,  we  have  been 
obliged  to  reform  all  our  notions  on  that  subject. 
We  have  not  only  seen  the  great  civilized  powers 
of  Europe  at  war  with  one  another,  on  a  scale 
wholly  unprecedented,  but  we  find  our  own  coun- 
try now  drawn  into  that  war,  and  in  some  sense 
one  of  the  principal  and  most  important  factors  in 
it.  Every  now  and  then  I  hear  people  say  that  even 
to-day  we  Americans  do  not  realize  that  America 
is  at  war;  and  every  now  and  then,  though  not 
often,  I  hear  somebody  say,  "This  isn't  a  popular 
war."  I  try  to  analyze  what  they  mean  by  that, 
and  my  mind  goes  back  to  other  places  and  other 
times.  I  can  see  nations  assembling  their  armies 
amid  the  plaudits  of  the  crowds ;  I  can  see  women 
cheering  marching  armies  and  armed  nations  in 
frenzy  of  madness  and  military  spirit.  And  then  I 
look  from  that  to  our  people  and  I  say,  "No,  in 
that  sense,  this  is  not  a  popular  war."  God  forbid 
that  any  war  should  ever  be  popular  in  the  United 
States  in  that  sense.  A  disordered  national 
imagination,  an  unrighteous  national  ambition,  a 
lust  for  conquest,  a  craze  for  blood,  a  willingness 
to  take  by  force  from  other  people  who  would  be 
content  if  left  in  peace  with  justice — that  spirit 
has  sometimes  made  what  is  called  a  popular 
war.  The  present  war,  it  was  declared,  was  very 
popular  in  Germany.  I  think  it  is  less  popular 

[1171 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

now  and  growing  still  less  popular.  We  remem- 
ber the  stories  when  the  German  Army  was  mob- 
ilized— how  in  every  city  flags  decorated  each 
house  and  how  women  leaned  out  of  windows 
to  throw  flowers  to  the  departing  German  troops 
and  told  their  heroes  to  return  with  the  "Mittel 
Europa"  ideal  realized.  We  have  no  such  scenes 
as  that,  but  as  befits  a  great,  civilized  and  free 
people,  this  war  has  the  majesty  of  a  great  idea; 
it  has  the  dignity  of  a  high  ideal;  it  marks  the 
determination  of  a  free  people  to  reestablish  jus- 
tice on  an  earth  which  for  three  years  has  wept 
in  ashes  and  in  blood. 

We  must  realize  that  we  are  at  war;  we  must 
realize  that  the  very  character  of  our  adversary 
and  the  aggression  which  brought  on  our  own 
participation  marks  it  as  a  supreme  struggle. 
Let  no  man  imagine  for  a  moment  that 
a  feeble  effort  will  suffice.  If  we  are  in 
truth  to  rescue  civilization  out  of  this  conflagra- 
tion, then  every  nerve  and  every  muscle,  every 
thought,  every  affection,  every  impulse,  every 
capacity  both  in  us  as  individuals  and  collectively 
in  us  as  a  nation,  must  be  devoted  to  this  under- 
taking, not  only  that  we  may  win,  but  that  we 
may  win  quickly.  For  every  day  that  this  war 
continues  decreases  the  wealth  of  the  world  by 
at  least  $100,000,000  and  many  thousand  lives. 
So  far  these  have  been  not  your  lives,  nor  mine, 
nor  those  of  our  sons  or  brothers,  but  the  lives  of 
fellow  human  beings,  much  like  us,  who  are  en- 
[118] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

titled  to  peace  and  liberty  and  opportunity  in  the 
world  and  whose  welfare  is  an  essential  ingredi- 
ent, in  any  wide  and  popular  view,  of  our  own 
welfare.  So,  if  America  can  shorten  this  war  by 
a  single  day,  it  is  worth  the  effort  that  it  costs. 

Now  this  task,  in  order  that  you  may  have 
some  notion  of  its  magnitude,  I  shall  describe 
only  by  casual  reference.  When  the  war  broke 
out  the  United  States  had  a  Regular  Army  not 
much  larger  than  the  municipal  police  force  of 
the  city  of  London.  It  had  a  trained  body  of 
officers.  West  Point,  certainly  the  finest  mili- 
tary school  in  the  world,  had  been  turning  out  a 
small  contingent  of  officers  and  some  additions 
had  been  made  from  time  to  time  from  civil  life. 
And  so  we  had  officers  enough  for  that  small 
army.  But  when  we  realized  the  character  of 
this  war,  there  was  a  general  feeling  on  the 
part  of  the  people  that,  in  assembling  quickly 
enough  the  huge  military  establishment  neces- 
sary, there  would  be  a  great  shortage  of 
officers;  and  it  was  doubted  whether  this  mili- 
tary establishment  of  ours  could  show  the  ex- 
pansion necessary  successfully  to  produce  offi- 
cers and  trained  men.  Now  what  was  the  first 
thing  done?  Training  camps  were  opened  for 
officers.  More  than  100,000  young  men  in  this 
country  applied  for  admission  to  those  training 
camps.  In  the  space  of  about  two  months  there 
was  assembled  and  trained  as  fine  a  group  of 
young  men  as  ever  donned  uniforms  on  the  face 
[119] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

of  tLis  planet.  I  give  you,  not  my  own  estimate, 
but  the  estimate  of  the  grizzled  veterans  of  the 
Regular  Army — the  men  who  have  spent 
forty  and  fifty  years  in  the  Regular  Army. 
They  tell  me  with  one  accord  that  this  body  of 
young  men  who  came  from  our  training  camps 
is  as  fine  officer  material  as  any  army  in  the 
world  has  ever  had.  I  want  to  pay  this  tribute 
to  the  American  college.  The  young  men  who 
are  in  those  camps  were  for  the  most  part  from 
our  colleges;  in  no  large  part  young  men  of 
wealth;  in  no  large  part  professional  men;  but 
sons  of  artisans  and  of  workers  just  as  much  as 
sons  of  professional  men.  They  were  a 
cross-section  of  American  life.  But  when  they 
put  on  the  uniform  and  devoted  themselves  to 
training,  the  essence  of  the  athletic  spirit — that 
American  desire  or  demand  for  fair  play — and 
the  results  of  the  universal  education  which  we 
have  spread  over  America  demonstrated  their 
value  to  us  as  a  nation.  We  summoned  them  out  of 
the  workshops  and  the  cornfield  and  the  office  and 
almost  overnight  fashioned  them  into  officers. 
Then  we  began  to  assemble  the  army.  The 
Regular  Army  was  doubled  in  size  by  volun- 
teers. The  National  Guard  was  filled,  in  some 
places  quite  to  war  strength,  by  volunteering. 
Our  own  State  of  Ohio  increased  its  contribu- 
tion of  National  Guard  troops  until  it  stood  a 
full  division,  so  that  it  ranks  third  in  the  United 
[120] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

States,  only  three  having  a  full  division  of  the 
National  Guard. 

And  then  the  so-called  Selective  Service  Law 
was  passed,  and  those  who  little  understood  the 
nature  of  America,  those  who  were  victimized  by 
the  fear  or  belief  that  democracies  are  necessar- 
ily feeble  in  their  institutions  and  that  the  inter- 
ests of  the  citizens  in  a  democracy  are  necessarily 
selfish  and  individual  as  contrasted  with  commu- 
nal and  public — people  of  that  type  of  mind  were 
fearful  when  we  asked  the  country  to  select  an 
army  that  the  country  would  not  receive  well 
this  sort  of  invitation.  Yet  in  the  few  months 
that  have  elapsed,  ten  million  young  Americans 
from  21  to  31  have  been  enrolled  by  our  own 
registration  boards,  by  the  use  of  civilians  se- 
lected out  of  our  own  communities.  Boards  of 
exemption  and  review  have  selected  and  sent 
into  the  camps  or  cantonments  687,000  choice 
young  men  from  the  body  of  the  country.  I 
want  you  to  realize  and  take  pride  in  that  spec- 
tacle !  Men  used  to  go  through  the  public  streets 
waving  banners  with  legends  on  them  that  ex- 
cited momentary  passions,  and,  with  the  stirring 
music  of  the  fife  and  drum,  young  men  fell  in. 
But  here,  as  befits  a  democracy,  the  grave  and 
serious  duty  of  defending  the  national  interest 
was  apportioned  by  the  selective  process,  with- 
out the  beating  of  a  drum  and  without  a  murmur 
of  opposition. 

Now  I  tell  you  what  the  result  is: — In  those 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

camps,  not  the  volunteer  camps,  each  man  is 
asked:  "What  do  you  want  to  do?"  I  have 
had  reports  from  five  or  six  of  the  largest  camps 
and  they  show  that  the  majority  answered  in 
effect  "I  don't  care  what  I  do  just  so  I  get  to 
France  among  the  first!"  The  next  question 
asked  them  is:  "What  branch  of  the  service 
do  you  prefer?"  Now  one  who  didn't  know 
America  would  expect  them  to  say:  "Well,  I 
have  been  working  in  a  store;"  "I  have  been  a 
hand  on  a  farm;"  "I  have  been  a  mechanic;" 
"I  have  been  a  clerk;"  "I  don't  know  much  about 
guns  and  cannon;  perhaps  the  Quartermaster 
Corps  or  the  Ordnance  Department  or  some  one 
of  the  non-combatant  places  is  the  place  where 
I  can  render  the  best  service."  But  what  is  the 
fact?  Of  these  sons  and  brothers,  drawn  out 
of  life  by  selection — more  than  one-third  asked 
to  go  into  the  infantry  service.  The  next  choice 
is  the  light  artillery ;  the  next  is  the  heavy  artil- 
lery service ;  the  next  is  the  aviation  service.  So 
that  what  they  asked  for  in  a  tremendously  pre- 
dominating majority  of  instances  is,  not  the  non- 
combatant  service  for  which  their  previous  ex- 
perience might  qualify  them,  but  the  fighting 
branches,  so  that  they  can  take  the  risk  of  fight- 
ing for  their  country  with  the  real  weapons  of 
war!  Our  nation  need  have  nothing  but  mount- 
ing pride  at  the  spectacle  they  present. 

For  this  army,  amounting  to  more  than  a  mil- 
lion men,  much  preparation  had  to  be  made.  We 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

had  had  a  situation  which  might  roughly  be  de- 
scribed as  this : — The  Chief  of  Ordnance  or  the 
Quartermaster  General  went  to  buy  supplies;  he 
took  his  basket  and  went  to  the  nearest  market 
place  and  if  he  did  not  get  what  he  wanted  in  one 
market  he  went  to  another.  But  when  we  went 
into  this  war,  it  was  realized  that  there  was 
not  in  the  country  enough  of  many  of  the  most 
necessary  supplies,  and  the  task  began  of  or- 
ganizing the  business  industry  of  this  whole  na- 
tion to  do  the  things  necessary  to  sustain  and 
carry  forward  this  army. 

It  has  required  business  to  be  done  on  a  very 
large  scale.  I  made  a  speech  two  months  ago 
in  which  I  was  trying  to  tell  the  people  of  New 
York  the  size  of  the  operations  of  the  War 
Department,  and  I  mentioned  that  before  the 
year  was  over  we  would  have  bought  5,000,000 
blankets.  That  was  two  months  ago.  We  have 
already  bought  11,000,000  blankets.  The  War 
Department  appropriation  used  to  be  two  hun- 
dred million  or  three  hundred  million  dollars, 
and  under  exceptional  circumstances  it  sometimes 
ran  up  to  four  hundred  millions.  Several 
branches  of  the  War  Department  now  have  each 
three  hundred  millions  to  spend ;  and  this  is  only 
the  beginning. 

America   occupies   this   position: — We   must 

not  only  supply  our  own  army,  but  we  must 

continue    to    furnish    large    supplies    to    those 

who   are   allied   with   us   in    this  undertaking; 

[123] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

and  in  addition  to  that,  the  normal  process 
of  our  life  as  a  nation  must  go  forward 
in  order  that  we  may  be  strong  now  and  strong 
in  the  reconstructing  process  that  will  be  neces- 
sary after  this  war.  Therefore,  our  effort  in 
Washington  has  been  so  to  expand  industry  as 
to  meet  our  need  and  so  to  conserve  the  health  of 
our  people  by  preventing  where  we  could  and  dis- 
couraging where  we  could  excessive  hours  of  la- 
bor as  to  build  a  great  army  and  equip  it  and  turn 
the  industries  of  our  country  over  to  our  allies  in 
accordance  with  their  needs.  At  the  same  time  we 
have  tried  to  keep  building  up  a  strong  and  vigor- 
ous people,  in  order  that  our  army  might  be  prop- 
erly sustained  and  that  America,  when  the  war  is 
over,  shall  represent  a  great  reservoir  of  human 
strength  and  high  morality  to  put  a  fresh  stamp 
on  the  face  of  the  world. 

All  of  these  things  require  money.  They  require 
money  in  a  very  large  amount.  I  remember  only  a 
few  years  ago  when  we  talked  about  a  million  dol- 
lar contract  as  though  there  were  something  scan- 
dalous about  the  work ;  and  now  the  expenditures 
of  our  Government  will  probably  be  twenty  bil- 
lion dollars.  It  means  that  we  must  contribute 
money.  It  doesn't  mean  a  few  people,  but  it 
means  that  everybody  must  contribute.  I  want  to 
ask  you  to  remember  this : — In  twenty  thousand 
homes  in  Cleveland,  there  are  mothers,  fathers, 
sisters,  wives,  who  have  somebody  at  the  front. 
Some  of  you  may  have  soldier  boys  in  training. 
[124] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

But  whether  you  personally  have  or  not,  your 
fellow  citizen  has!  The  little  boys  that  played 
about  your  doorstep,  it  seems  only  yesterday,  are 
now  in  uniform  at  Chillicothe  or  Montgomery, 
or  on  the  high  seas,  or  have  gone  across  the  high 
seas,  to  meet  a  military  adversary  the  worst,  in  a 
military  sense,  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Their 
safety  will  depend  upon  their  having  clothes,  and 
food,  and  protective  devices.  Can  you  conceive  of 
sleeping  at  night  if  you  felt  that  Johnny  who 
played  on  your  doorstep  lacked  any  one  of  those 
things  because  you  hadn't  done  your  duty? 

I  suppose  some  day  the  Adjutant  General's 
office  will  have  a  list  of  people  from  France,  our 
people,  who  have  given  up  their  lives  for  this 
cause.  It  may  be  that  telegrams  will  come  to 
Cleveland  telling  of  losses  among  our  people; 
and  our  imaginations  will  fly  to  the  fields  of 
France  and  we  will  see  upturned  faces  of  boys 
whom  we  knew,  who  have  given  all  for  their 
country — boys  it  may  be  who  can't  even  be 
brought  home  to  rest  with  their  fathers.  When 
the  list  comes,  when  our  imagination  thus  dwells 
upon  their  heroic  sacrifice  and  upon  the  splen- 
dor of  that  contribution  to  the  rescue  of  the. 
world,  don't  let  any  of  us  have  the  shrinking  and 
shirking  feeling  that  if  we  had  done  more  in  the 
matter  of  supplying  them  with  protecting  devices 
the  story  might  have  been  otherwise!  This 
is  very  real  to  me.  These  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Americans  in  a  certain  sense  rest  on  my 
[125] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

shoulders  by  the  accidents  of  official  position. 
I  come  to  you,  my  fellow  citizens  of  Cleveland,  to 
ask  you  to  help  bear  that  burden. 

I  suppose  that  the  world  would  not  continue 
to  exist  if  there  were  not  some  doubting  Thom- 
ases— if  there  were  not  some  misguided  people 
who  criticized  some  particular  fault  or  another 
— drumstick  orators  about  broomstick  prepara- 
tion and  that  sort  of  thing.  But  let  us  pass  that 
over.  You  can  rest  in  the  assurance  that 
America  has  shown  herself  worthy  in  her  prepa- 
ration and  our  boys  are  not  going  to  want  in 
the  supply  of  arms  and  ammunition  and  pro- 
tective devices  against  the  artifices  of  our  ad- 
versary. They  are  flowing  out  in  adequate  quan- 
tity from  our  workshops.  And  in  addition  to  that, 
— and  I  like  more  to  tell  you  this  than  anything 
else, — there  is  going  to  be  a  better  fighting  army 
than  we  have  ever  had,  a  better  army  than  we 
have  ever  had  in  this  respect,  that  from  the  first 
day  that  a  soldier  was  called,  it  was  determined 
that  the  environment  in  which  he  was  trained 
should  be  a  stimulating  and  wholesome  environ- 
ment. There  are  things  that  soldiers  can  bring 
home  that  are  worse  than  wounds.  It  was  deter- 
mined that  so  far  as  these  training  camps  in  this 
country  were  concerned  they  should  be  wholesome 
and  stimulating  and  that  the  young  men  trained 
in  them  should  have  opportunity  to  progress  and 
learn.  So  our  camps  are  filled  with  boys  play- 
ing football  and  baseball  and  tennis.  At  the 
[126] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

last  camp  I  visited  I  looked  under  the  beds 
where  the  boys  keep  their  libraries  and  I  found 
one  boy  with  a  plane  and  solid  geometry, 
one  with  Caesar's  Commentaries  and  others  with 
books  of  poetry  and  romance.  We  are  sending 
into  this  contest  Americans  of  culture  and  high 
ideals — worthy  of  the  cause  they  are  going  to 
defend.  And  when  they  come  out  of  it,  they 
will  be  stimulated  and  strengthened  so  far  as 
their  minds  and  bodies  are  concerned — heroes  in 
the  highest  sense  of  the  word — having  contrib- 
uted their  services  to  a  great  ethical  cause. 

Now  let  me  deal  just  a  minute  with  the  cause. 
Every  man  in  this  country  hoped  that  this  might 
not  happen.  When  this  war  broke  out  in  Eu- 
rope, we  stood  back  horrified  and  aghast.  We 
knew  among  our  neighbors  and  friends  mem- 
bers of  each  of  these  nationalities  and  peoples. 
We  know  them  now!  It  seemed  inconceivable 
that  aggregated  as  a  nation  they  should  much 
differ  from  the  individuals  we  knew.  And  when 
philosophers  tried  to  tell  us  a  new  spirit  had 
come  over  the  government  of  the  German  peo- 
ple, many  of  us  thought  of  Schiller  and  Goethe 
and  of  the  splendid  progress  of  these  people  in 
art  and  civilization,  and  it  was  difficult  to  imagine 
that  theirs  was  a  government  which  had  foregone 
and  forgotten  the  moralities  which  ordinarily  ex- 
ist among  civilized  people.  Yet  we  saw  things 
that  brook  no  other  explanation.  When  Belgium 
was  invaded  as  a  military  necessity,  there  seemed 
[127] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

to  be  a  sort  of  callous  disregard  for  wrongdoing 
that  certainly  excited  many  of  us.  And  then 
when  the  stealthy  warfare  of  the  U-boat  began! 
— At  first  against  their  armed  adversary,  that 
seemed  horrible  enough.  It  seemed  to  lack  the 
boldness  which  ordinarily  characterizes  war. 
Then  we  saw  the  U-boat  war  extended  to  the 
unarmed  ship  and  we  found  in  international  law 
that  a  merchant  ship,  even  of  an  enemy,  may  not 
be  attacked  without  warning  until  the  casual 
persons,  the  passengers,  are  carried  in  safety 
from  the  perils  of  the  sea.  And  yet  in  spite  of 
that,  we  saw  a  ship  like  the  Lusitania,  filled  with 
non-combatant  people,  men,  women,  children, 
some  of  them  English,  some  Americans,  who,  at 
the  very  moment,  were  friendly  people  to  the  Ger- 
man Government — we  saw  that  great  ship  sent 
down.  And  we  tried  to  get  away  from  the  horror 
of  that  spectacle!  I  am  sure  you  felt  as  I  did — 
for  months  after  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  as  I 
closed  my  eyes  at  night,  I  could  imagine  the  waves, 
each  of  those  lines  of  foam  no  longer  mere  foam, 
but  the  white  shroud  of  some  American  woman 
or  child  ruthlessly  done  to  death!  But  Ger- 
many had  given  up  all  charity  and  all  thought 
of  consequences  and  was  rushing  forth  with  the 
feet  of  war  bent  on  conquest  and  destruction. 
Our  Government  protested  and  the  German 
government  said:  "No!  We  don't  intend 
keeping  on  doing  this,"  and  made  a  solemn 
engagement  that  passengers  would  be  given 
[128] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

an  opportunity  to  make  a  safe  escape.  Within 
six  weeks  after  that  assurance,  another  ship 
was  sunk  under  somewhat  similar  circum- 
stances; and  the  German  government  sent  us 
word  they  disavowed  that  action  and  would  pun- 
ish the  captain  of  the  U-boat.  They  teased  us 
and  solaced  us  for  our  dead  with  promises  which 
they  later  confessed  were  only  made  to  keep  us 
quiet  until  they  had  built  all  the  submarines  they 
needed.  I  do  not  blame  the  German  people  al- 
though it  seems  to  me  a  great  tragedy  that  a  part 
of  the  German  people  approved  it  after  it  was 
done.  But  I  blame  their  mad  leaders  who  seemed 
to  have  drunk  of  human  blood  until  they  were 
insane.  I  blame  German  autocracy  which  sets 
the  law  of  the  Hohenzollern  dynasty  above  the 
law  of  God  on  this  earth  and  is  willing  to  have 
its  own  people  immoral  and  the  neutral  nations 
of  the  world  subjected  to  ruthless  slaughter  in 
order  that  it  may  magnify  the  pretenses  of  its 
emperor  king ! 

And  then  came  the  notice  that  the  German 
government  had  built  enough  submarines  to  feel 
safe  and  would  march  on  the  open  highway  of  the 
commerce  of  mankind  and  mark  out  lanes  through 
which  we  might  send  a  ship  or  two  provided  we 
painted  them  like  barber  poles!  We  could  not 
be  assured  that  even  these  ships  would  be  safe. 
We  were  told  that  the  Master  of  the  Universe 
and  the  Partner  of  God  had  decreed  that  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  ocean  could  not  be  traversed  by 
[129] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

ships  and  that  if  we  undertook  to  continue  our 
commerce  the  ships  would  be  sunk  without  warn- 
ing. We  had  two  courses.  We  could  send  the 
ambassador  home  and  rest  with  a  protest.  We 
could  have  shrunk  and  shriveled  and  said:  "So 
long  as  you  don't  pinch  us,  you  can  eat  every- 
body else."  We  could  have  given  up  our  rights 
to  be  a  nation.  We  could  have  knelt  at  the 
foot  of  the  Hohenzollern  throne  and  said :  "Thy 
will,  O  Lord,  is  enough  for  us."  We  didn't  do  it! 
We  had  no  intention  of  doing  it!  Not  because 
it  made  so  very  much  difference,  perhaps,  whether 
we  saved  a  ship,  but  because,  by  this  time,  it  had 
become  clear  that  this  war  was  not  an  ordinary 
war  but  a  conflict  of  philosophies;  because  we 
had  to  admit  autocracy  as  the  only  form  of 
government  on  this  earth  or  else  we  had  to  dem- 
onstrate that  democracy  was  its  master. 

I  hope  my  imagination  is  not  too  lively;  but  I 
like  to  think  of  Jefferson  and  Washington  and 
the  men  who  founded  this  country  as  looking 
down  upon  the  world  and  thinking  that  off  in  a 
forest  they  planted  a  democracy  for  the  better- 
ment of  mankind.  I  like  to  think  of  their  follow- 
ing the  results  of  its  example,  until  even  China 
shakes  itself  out  of  an  empire  thousands  of  years 
old,  and  Russia  shakes  off  autocracy,  and  then 
saying:  "These  things  are  really  the  fruits  of 
our  spirit;  they  are  all  our  children."  And  if 
they  do  see  and  have  followed  the  course  of 
human  events,  they  must  realize  that  this  war 
[130] 


THE  CALL  TO  FREE  MEN 

is  a  war  for  freedom,  and,  unless  we  saw  our 
way  out,  our  .turn  would  be  next.  From  the  in- 
vasion of  Belgium  it  was  evident  that  there  was 
a  recrudescence  of  the  spirit  that  led  Augustus 
Caesar  in  ancient  Rome  to  try  to  conquer  the 
world.  And  now  those  in  America  under  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  who  learned  to  lisp  almost 
with  their  first  words  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence have  really  joined  hands  with  free  men 
everywhere  so  that,  presenting  a  solid  front,  we 
might  turn  over  a  new  page  in  the  book  of  history, 
put  there  the  authority  and  the  sign-manual  of 
democracy  on  the  earth,  and  by  this  cooperation 
of  effort  strike  down  forever  the  false  philos- 
ophy that  subjects  the  will  to  dynastic  pretenses, 
and  establish  on  the  earth  once  and  for  all  those 
lanes  of  justice  and  of  freedom  without  which 
further  human  progress  is  impossible. 

I  have  finished.  I  came  not  so  much  to  tell 
why  the  war  is  being  fought  nor  its  nature,  but 
I  came  to  tell  you  that  this  is  your  war  and  mine ; 
and  that  those  of  us  who  are  too  old  to  fight,  who 
can't  shoulder  a  gun  and  live  in  a  trench  or  wear 
a  gas-mask,  those  of  us  who  have  not  been 
chosen  for  such  service  can  still  fight  our  part  in 
this  war;  and  it  takes  only  a  stroke  of  the  pen  on 
the  application  for  a  bond.  We  must  build  here 
at  home  dreadnoughts  of  money  and  42-centi- 
meters  of  finance,  and  the  message  they  will 
carry  will  be  one  of  encouragement  to  our  own 
soldiers.  To  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  have 
[131] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

brought  destruction  on  the  earth;  to  those  who 
have  caused  the  awful  holocaust  and  loss  of  blood 
and  treasure;  to  those  at  Potsdam  who  now,  in 
the  providence  of  God,  are  beginning  to  tremble, 
to  them  the  message  of  this  accumulation  of 
treasure  by  you  will  be  the  voice  of  doom !  They 
will  find  written  on  the  wall,  with  the  finger  of 
America,  the  message  which  means  that  un- 
righteousness shall  not  prevail. 


[132] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

The  forty  years  of  preparation  which  the  German  gov- 
ernment went  through  were  forty  years  of  deadening  the 
minds  of  the  German  people  so  that  they  would  not 
realize  the  possibility  of  liberty  in  the  world,  so  that  they 
would  follow  without  asking  questions,  so  that  they 
zvould  substitute  the  welfare  of  the  Hohenzollern  Dy- 
n-asty  for  any  considerations  of  humanity. 

BOSTON  CITY  CLUB,  OCTOBER  25,  1917. 

IF  a  man  who  is  called  upon  to  decide  something 
can  only  see  the  man  to  whom  he  is  talk- 
ing, he  is  quite  likely  to  go  wrong.  But  if  a 
man  has  just  imagination  enough  to  shut  his 
eyes  and  see  over  the  head  of  the  man  he  is  talk- 
ing to  and  see  the  persons  who,  though  unrepre- 
sented, are  still  interested,  he  is  not  likely  to 
make  a  mistake,  either  from  lack  of  courage  or 
for  any  personal  consideration.  Hence  when  a 
man  gets  into  a  public  place,  like  the  head  of  a 
department  in  Washington,  it  is  an  important 
thing  to  remember  that  the  particular  persons 
who  happen  to  be  grouped  in  the  relatively  small 
office  in  which  he  is  situated  are  only  an  in- 
finitesimal fraction  of  all  the  people  who  dwell 
between  the  Pacific  and  the  Atlantic  oceans,  and 
that  the  real  answer  to  the  question  always  is, — 
[133] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

and  sometimes  it  is  rather  painful  and  difficult, — 
not,  how  it  will  affect  the  particular  individual 
who  is  there,  but  how  it  is  going  to  affect  this 
great  lot  of  people  who,  so  far  as  that  question 
is  concerned,  are  just  as  important  as  the  person 
to  whom  he  is  talking. 

Of  course  this  situation  is  one  in  which  not 
only  public  officers  in  Washington,  but  men  all 
over  this  great  country  of  ours,  men  of  all  walks 
of  life,  and  of  all  intricacies  of  interest  in  busi- 
ness and  industry,  have,  so  far  as  they  them- 
selves are  concerned,  ceased  to  exist  as  persons. 
There  has  been  a  great  amalgamation  of  the 
individual  personalities  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  into  a  composite  national  unit 
type.  I  think  it  will  be  said  of  all  the  people 
who  are  actively  engaged  in  this  war  that  per- 
sonal interest  and  self-interest  have  all  been  for- 
gotten, party  distinction  has  been  unremem- 
bered,  the  old  habit  of  getting  and  gaining  in 
life  has  been  foregone,  and  there  is  a  sponta- 
neous and  inspiring  unanimity  of  opinion  among 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  whether  in  pub- 
lic office  or  out  of  it,  that  nothing  else  matters 
until  this  war  is  won. 

I  am  glad  to  be  here  because  I  think  it  is  highly 
important  that  there  should  be  an  interchange  of 
opinion  among  the  people  of  the  United  States 
about  the  great  business  upon  which  our  nation  is 
engaged.  This  war  differs  from  every  other  war 
in  history,  both  in  its  size,  in  its  intensity,  in  its 
[134] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

characteristics,  and  in  the  implements  with  which 
it  is  being  fought.  The  number  of  men  now  en- 
gaged on  the  battlefields  of  Europe  is  perhaps 
greater  at  this  moment  than  the  aggregate  of  all 
the  people  who  have  been  on  European  battle- 
fields in  one  hundred  years  before  this  war  be- 
gan. And  not  only  is  that  true,  but  the  peoples 
who  are  represented  are  more  affected  by  the 
war  than  any  peoples  have  ever  been  by  any  war 
which  has  taken  place  since  men  ceased  to  slay 
all  of  their  adversaries,  including  men,  women, 
and  children. 

There  was,  if  one  may  so  characterize  it,  orig- 
inally a  period  of  barbaric  warfare,  in  which 
the  extermination,  root  and  branch,  of  the  ad- 
versary was  the  aim  of  a  combatant,  and  after 
a  victory  had  been  won  in  that  age  it  was  cus- 
tomary to  gather  all  of  the  conquered  men  and  the 
women  and  children  together,  and  enslave  or  kill 
them,  so  that  the  extermination  of  the  adversary 
would  be  thoroughgoing.  Then,  as  men  began 
to  be  civilized  and  began  to  have  not  only  some 
compunctions  of  humanity,  but  some  realization 
of  the  economic  interdependence  of  men  upon  one 
another,  that  mode  of  warfare  was  succeeded  by 
what  may  be  called  the  era  of  civilized  warfare, 
in  which  year  after  year,  and  war  after  war, 
new  restraints  were  put  upon  the  combatants  in 
the  interest  of  the  non-combatant  population. 
We  began  to  draw  up  and  set  down  in  books, 
and  recognize  and  act  upon,  certain  rules  of  so- 
[135] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

called  civilized  warfare.  Among  those  rules 
were  some  that  have  become  axiomatic,  so  that 
everybody  who  hears  them  accepts  them  at  once. 
For  instance,  that  a  non-combatant  civilian  popu- 
lation, not  occupying  a  fortified  place,  and  not 
participating  in  military  activity,  is  immune 
from  attack.  Another,  appertaining  to  the  sea, 
has  been  for  many,  many  years  well  recognized 
and  lived  up  to  by  all  civilized  nations,  that  mer- 
chant ships,  even  of  an  adversary  nation,  are 
not  subject  to  be  attacked  until  after  they  have 
been  halted  and  searched  and  their  non-combat- 
ant passengers  given  an  opportunity  to  secure  a 
safe  retreat.  Many  rules  of  that  kind  have 
grown  up  in  the  era  of  civilized  warfare,  with 
this  result  that  the  rigors  of  war,  outside  of 
the  actual  losses  at  the  battle  front  and  the  in- 
evitable griefs  at  home  caused  by  them  during 
this  long  period,  have  been  visited  almost  ex- 
clusively upon  the  combatants. 

Now  we  have  suddenly  drawn  a  line  and  closed 
the  age  of  civilized  warfare,  and  have  gone  into 
a  new  era  of  barbarous  warfare,  in  which 
one  belligerent  has  so  far  cast  aside  all 
of  these  rules  and  restrictions  of  civilized  war- 
fare that  it  has  not  hesitated  to  kill,  to  mutilate, 
to  maim,  and  to  outrage  women  and  children ;  to 
bombard  defenseless  and  undefended  towns;  to 
drop  bombs  from  the  sky  upon  civilian  popula- 
tions; and  to  organize  a  mode  of  warfare  by  sea 
which,  if  it  were  individual  in  its  execution,  would 
[136] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

be  called  a  process  of  assassination,  and  which 
consists  in  an  unseen  implement,  under  the  sur- 
face of  the  sea,  not  taking  the  hazards  of  war; 
not  willing  to  play  the  game,  not  giving  the  other 
fellow  a  chance;  skulking  away  from  any  ship 
which  may  have  the  means  of  defending  itself; 
lurking  until  it  finds  an  unsuspecting  and  de- 
fenseless victim;  and  then  by  stealth  doing  it  to 
death,  without  even  giving  the  women  on  board 
a  chance  to  say  their  prayers. 

The  character  of  this  war  has  not  only  be- 
come thus  barbarous,  but  its  effects  are  no  lon- 
ger restricted  to  the  combatant  population  and 
the  civilian  population  who  are  intimately  con- 
nected with  those  who  are  thus  engaged,  but 
we  witness  now  a  coordination  of  the  nations  for 
war  which  reaches  out  to  the  remotest  village 
and  hamlet  of  a  country  engaged.  Take  our  own 
case.  When  we  are,  ourselves,  thoughtless  about 
it,  we  think  of  this  war  as  being  fought  in  France. 
Why,  it  is  being  fought  in  Boston,  it  is  being 
fought  in  Cleveland!  It  is  being  fought  in  Se- 
attle, and  in  Waco,  Texas.  We  think  of  it  as 
being  fought  by  these  army  officers  and  the  men 
in  uniform  in  the  other  countries.  It  is  being 
fought  by  you.  It  is  being  fought  by  your  wives. 
It  is  being  fought  in  every  factory,  in  every 
workshop,  in  every  store,  in  every  home,  in  this 
country,  and  by  those  marvelously  subtle  proc- 
esses of  modern  scientific  achievement  whereby 
we  are  all  coordinated, — as  Lowell  once  said,  "by 
[137] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

a  common  nervous  system," — until  we  now  have 
an  institution  where  every  man's  thought,  energy, 
and  nervous  system  are  electrically  connected 
through  a  center,  and  all  made  a  part  of  the  ag- 
gregate economic  force  to  win.  So  that  this  war 
differs  in  character,  in  intensity,  and  in  conse- 
quences from  any  other. 

I  have  no  doubt  many  men  in  this  room  have 
read  the  story  of  Napoleon's  invasion  of  Rus- 
sia. I  think  no  greater  book  has  been  written 
in  the  lifetime  of  any  living  man  than  Tolstoy's 
"War  and  Peace."  It  tells  the  whole  story  of 
war  in  Russia,  the  Napoleonic  advance,  the  Na- 
poleonic retreat,  the  withdrawal  of  the  civilian 
population  in  advance  of  the  army;  and  Tolstoy's 
purpose  was  to  paint  it  at  its  worst — not  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  glory,  the  waving  of  flags,  and 
the  huzzas  of  victory,  but  to  paint  the  individual, 
personal  side  of  war — and  so  he  told  of  families, 
of  villages,  and  of  cities,  and  how  they  were  af- 
fected. Yet  when  you  compare  that  tragic  ex- 
perience with  what  the  world  has  seen  in  the 
three  years  which  we  now  look  back  upon,  it 
seems  like  the  mimicry  of  children — it  seems 
like  sham  battle — as  compared  with  the  awful 
devastation  which  the  human  race  has  suffered 
in  that  time. 

I  need  say  nothing  of  Belgium.  That  is  so  in- 
timately known  to  us  that  we,  in  our  own  bodies, 
it  seems  to  me,  have  suffered  with  the  Belgians. 
There  was  a  poetic  quality  about  the  invasion 
[138] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

of  Belgium.  It  seemed  as  though  there  was 
something  Greek  about  it.  Here  were  those 
people,  letting  everybody  alone  and  willing  to  let 
everybody  alone,  and  asking  only  that  they  be 
let  alone;  building  up  a  little  civilization,  an  at- 
tractive and  beautiful  partner  of  the  civilization 
of  their  French  neighbor;  with  a  charming  and 
cultured  people  in  a  small  and  defenseless  coun- 
try; guaranteed  as  to  its  integrity  by  solemn  in- 
struments entered  into  by  all  of  the  surrounding 
nations,  by  which  each  of  them  agreed  not  only 
to  prevent  everybody  else  from  interfering  with 
the  integrity  of  that  country,  but  to  refrain  them- 
selves from  violating  it. 

We  followed  the  tragic  fate  of  Belgium.  We 
saw  its  undefended  cities  leveled  to  the  ground 
and  burned,  and  we  saw  houses  entered  by  sol- 
diers to  drive  out  the  civilian  population,  who 
were  lined  up  in  the  streets  and  shot  by  hun- 
dreds, in  order — so  we  were  told — that  the  whole 
world  might  take  notice  of  how  terrible  the  Ger- 
man autocracy  was  when  it  really  got  started. 

We  saw  later  a  large  part  of  the  Belgian  popu- 
lation deported — a  thing  that  had  not  happened, 
so  far  as  my  recollection  of  history  goes,  since 
the  days  of  the  Roman  conquest  of  the  world, 
when  the  victims  were  brought  in  trailing  at  the 
chariot  wheels  and  the  conqueror's  glory  was 
counted  by  the  number  of  his  captives.  Here 
was  a  civilian  population  which  had  done  nothing 
yet  the  people  were  herded  into  trains  and  carried 
[139] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

into  Germany,  put  into  workshops  and  subjected 
to  compulsory  labor,  judged  and  condemned  to 
involuntary  servitude,  for  no  crime,  but  merely  in 
furtherance  of  the  central  purpose  of  military 
aggression  and  dynastic  aggrandizement. 

That  story  is  so  well  known  to  us  that  we 
scarcely  need  to  have  it  called  to  our  minds.  But 
all  over  Europe,  in  every  corner  of  it,  death  and 
destruction  has  laid  its  heavy  hand  in  a  way  we 
scarcely  realize.  Armies  have  swept  over  Po- 
land; the  shrinking,  feeble,  and  timid  women, 
gathering  their  children  about  them,  have  with- 
drawn into  the  woods  and  tried  to  hide  from  this 
avalanche  of  armed  men,  and  in  the  exodus  of 
a  population,  fleeing  from  things  worse  than 
death,  the  little  babies  have  been  trampled  to 
death  before  the  advance  of  the  army  as  it 
came  to  take  possession.  In  Armenia  a  million 
persons  killed — not  combatant  persons,  not  men 
who  bared  their  bosoms  to  the  adversary  and 
said,  "It  is  an  even  game;  shoot  me  or  I  will 
shoot  you"; — but  people  sacrificed  to  the  fanati- 
cal religious  hatred  of  the  Turk  by  reason  of 
the  opportunity  presented  through  world-wide 
war,  with  the  worst  passions  of  the  Turk  stirred 
to  emulate  the  example  of  his  over-lord,  the 
Kaiser,  by  the  example  which  the  German  autoc- 
racy had  set  among  civilized  people. 

When  I  think  of  pictures  like  this  I  wonder 
how  the  German  Kaiser  can  sleep  at  night.  How 
fair  the  world  was  in  1914 !  The  marching  army 
[140] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

of  democratic  effort  and  belief  was  going  all 
over  the  world  and  adding  victories  for  human- 
ity and  mankind  to  the  great  territory  which  it 
had  conquered  in  its  original  home  here.  I  was 
in  Europe  just  before  the  war  broke  out;  the  air 
was  electric  with  the  feeling  that  a  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  social  and  domestic  relations  of  men 
was  in  progress,  that  the  thing  which  was 
started  here  in  Boston — the  spirit  of  liberty  and 
independence  and  of  self-government,  and  of 
the  dignity  of  the  individual,  a  message  which 
had  been  first  sent  from  here — was  really  being 
heard  over  there.  Men  were  getting  to  be  recog- 
nized in  the  world.  In  places  where  ancient  aris- 
tocracies had  existed  and  present  royalty  and 
their  ancestors  had  ruled  for  years  and  years,  we 
were  coming  to  hear  of  happy  homes,  of  prosper- 
ous and  contented  people,  who  had  something  ap- 
proaching equality  of  opportunity,  economically 
and  industrially,  among  their  own  people.  In 
the  midst  of  that — just  when  the  spirit  of  the 
age  seemed  marching  to  the  redemption  of 
mankind — this  war  was  forced  upon  the  world, 
upon  the  flimsiest  and  most  paltry  of  excuses, 
because  I  think  nobody  can  have  examined  the 
original  cause  of  this  war,  the  ultimatum  to 
Serbia  and  its  answer,  and  the  things  which 
happened  after  that,  without  realizing  that  the 
head  of  the  German  government  willed  this  war. 
And  so  when  I  think  in  this  vein,  after  these 
three  years  of  slaughter,  with  civilization  bear- 
[141] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

ing  vital  if  not  deadly  wounds  in  every  part  of 
its  body,  with  the  hope  of  the  human  race  de- 
ferred centuries  from  the  advancement  that  it 
might  otherwise  quickly  have  attained,  I  won- 
der how  the  German  Emperor  is  able  to  sleep 
at  night. 

I  recall  a  picture  that  must  be  familiar  to  many 
of  you,  entitled,  "The  Conqueror,"  and  on  a 
shadow  emblematic  of  a  state  of  war  I  see 
riding  the  majestic  figure  of  a  man  who  while 
living  had  been  a  great  conqueror.  He  is 
riding  along  a  highway,  with  his  head  bowed 
down;  and  as  you  study  the  impressionistic  mist 
which  covers  the  picture,  you  can  see  that  the 
high  road  over  which  he  goes  is  made  up  of  the 
bodies  of  men  who  had  been  slain  in  order  that 
his  military  ambition  might  be  satisfied.  Along 
the  dim  road  through  which  this  solitary  figure 
is  riding,  stand  the  accusing  figures  of  the  victims 
of  his  wars,  each  of  them  only  a  spirit,  only  a 
reminiscence,  but  with  one  accord  each  of  them 
pointing,  as  he  rides  by,  to  his  conqueror.  So  I 
wonder  just  how,  when  all  the  flattery  and  adula- 
tion is  taken  away,  and  the  Kaiser  gets  into  his 
own  room  and  the  supernumeraries  who  bend  the 
knee  are  away  from  him,  and  he  is  by  himself  and 
realizes  that  the  head  and  front  of  his  nation  has 
let  loose  this  war  on  mankind  in  the  world — I 
wonder  how  he  is  able  to  sleep  at  night. 

Now  this  war  has  been  brought  about.  It  in- 
volves all  of  this  vast  coordination  and  aggrega- 
[142] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

tion  of  our  national  strength.  It  calls  on  each 
of  us  to  do  our  utmost  in  order  that  it  may  be 
successfully  and  speedily  brought  to  an  end.  I 
am  mightily  interested  in  bringing  this  war  to 
an  end.  But  I  have  no  reference  whatever 
merely  to  having  it  stop. 

This  war  went  on  for  two  or  three  years  with 
these  barbarous  attributes  which  I  have  de- 
scribed to  you,  with  the  frankly  professed  philos- 
ophy on  the  part  of  the  German  government 
that  it  was  going  to  make  itself  so  terrible  that 
nobody  would  dare  to  resist  it.  We  were  sepa- 
rated from  the  scene  of  the  conflict  by  about 
three  thousand  miles  of  ocean.  First  there  was 
the  Lusitania,  the  master  horror  of  this  war — 
except  one.  The  great  tragedy  of  this  war  is 
not  the  Lusitania,  but  it  is  the  fact  that  the  sink- 
ing of  the  Lusitania  was  approved  by  the  Ger- 
man nation.  That  is  the  most  tragic  fact  in 
modern  history. 

But  we  had  the  Lusitania,  and  then  our  gov- 
ernment protested  against  it,  and  the  German 
government  sent  out  solemn  diplomatic  assur- 
ances that  that  would  not  be  repeated.  Those 
assurances  had  scarcely  reached  us  before  other 
ships  of  the  same  general  kind  were  sunk  in 
much  the  same  way.  And  each  time  the  German 
government  disavowed  the  act — sent  us  word 
that  they  had  not  intended  to  commit  it — that  it 
was  unauthorized;  and  in  one  instance  they  said 
that  they  had  rebuked  the  commander  who  had 
[148] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

made  the  mistake;  giving  us  all  the  time,  first, 
the  definite  and  positive  assurance  that  there- 
after warfare  on  the  seas  would  be  conducted  in 
accordance  with  the  rules  of  civilized  warfare, 
and  when  these  constant  exceptions  were  made, 
reassuring  us  that  they  adhered  to  their  original 
declaration.  Finally  they  notified  us,  in  Feb- 
ruary, that  they  had  made  up  their  minds  to 
disregard  these  solemn  assurances  and  promises 
to  us,  to  make  another  historical  scrap  of  paper 
out  of  a  written  engagement,  to  declare  ruthless 
submarine  warfare  on  belligerent  and  neutral 
alike,  to  go  about  the  seas  worse  than  ever  the 
Barbary  pirates  bent  on  the  indiscriminate 
slaughter  of  men,  women  and  children,  friend  and 
foe  alike.  They  told  us  in  plain  terms  that  they 
had  drawn  out  on  the  map  of  the  waters  of  the 
deep  certain  narrow  lanes  in  which  we  American 
citizens  might  sail  a  limited  number  of  ships — and 
so  far  as  England  is  concerned,  my  recollection 
is  it  was  two  a  week  that  we  could  send  to  Eng- 
land— if  we  sent  them  in  that  lane  on  particular 
days,  and  painted  according  to  their  directions. 

Of  course  just  this  alternative  presented  it- 
self to  us.  We  could  either  yield — we  could 
either  say  that  we  had  grown  so  fat  and 
lazy  and  money-loving  that  we  had  forgotten 
liberty;  or  else  we  could  say,  "No,  all  the  pros- 
perity, all  the  success,  all  the  civilization,  all  the 
ethical  advance  of  our  people,  is  due  to  one  thing, 
and  that  is  that  we  have  been  free,  and  we  in- 
[144] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

tend  to  remain  free."  And  that  is  what  we  have 
said.  Now  we  are  dedicated  with  all  of  our 
efforts  of  every  kind,  with  our  lives,  our  for- 
tunes, to  win  this  war.  Why?  Because  at  last 
we  have  realized  that  the  forty  years  of  prepa- 
ration for  it  in  Germany  were  not  forty  years 
of  military  preparation.  It  does  not  take  forty 
years  to  prepare  anybody  to  do  anything  in  a 
military  sense.  And  all  the  things  that  the  Ger- 
mans had  twenty  years  ago — guns  and  ammuni- 
tion, and  all  of  that — are  obsolete  and  worn  out; 
so  that  their  forty  years  of  preparation  were  not 
for  the  accumulation  of  military  stores,  but  we 
realize  that  the  forty  years  of  preparation  which 
the  German  government  went  through  were  forty 
years  of  deadening  the  minds  of  the  German 
people,  so  that  they  would  not  realize  the  possi- 
bility of  liberty  in  the  world,  so  that  they  would 
follow  without  asking  questions,  so  that  they 
would  substitute  the  welfare  of  the  Hohenzol- 
lern  dynasty  for  any  considerations  of  humanity 
that  might  be  addressed  to  their  attention.  Now 
we  realize  that  our  adversary,  with  this  spectac- 
ular illustration  in  his  own  people  of  the  way  it 
blights  the  human  intellect  and  dwarfs  the  human 
conscience,  represents  the  principle  of  autocracy. 
Fate  has  taken  us  like  children  by  the  hand 
and  led  us  up  to  a  place  where  roads  divide,  and 
told  us  to  choose.  On  the  one  side  there  is  au- 
tocracy, a  certain  kind  of  mechanical  efficiency, 
a  certain  absence  of  spiritual  quality,  a  com- 
[145] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

pletely  selfish  and  ambitious  attitude  by  a  fa- 
vored class.  On  the  other  side  there  is  de- 
mocracy, with  its  struggle  and  its  chaos,  but  its 
boundless  horizon  of  opportunity  for  the  indi- 
vidual. We  are  asked  to  choose.  That  choice 
is  not  hard  for  us  to  make.  And  now  that  we 
have  made  it  we  are  entitled  to  be  cheered  by 
knowing  that  we  are  acting  worthily  upon  our 
choice.  The  inventive  genius  of  America,  a 
thing  which  hitherto  has  been  devoted  to  the  im- 
provement of  manufacturing  processes,  has  now 
been  diverted  to  a  new  and  great  scientific  enter- 
prise and  contest.  For  a  few  short  weeks — an 
incredibly  short  number  of  days — chosen  sci- 
entists and  inventors  have  been  sitting  in  a  room 
in  Washington,  and  each  of  them  has  given  up  all 
of  his  own  secrets  and  his  trade  formulas  and  his 
competitive  advantages,  and  they  have  pooled  is- 
sues, until  they  have  made  the  Liberty  engine  for 
our  aircraft,  which  is  perhaps  the  most  striking 
achievement  of  mechanical  ingenuity  and  perhaps 
the  best  indication  of  our  success  as  an  industrial 
nation  that  we  have  had  since  this  war  began. 

In  the  same  way  a  standardized  motor  truck 
— this  is  a  transportation  war — one  exceedingly 
simple  in  its  construction,  with  interchangeable 
parts,  and  easy  to  operate,  so  that  its  usefulness  is 
at  a  maximum,  and  one  easy  of  production  in 
quantities,  has  been  devised.  On  all  hands,  in- 
dustrially, inventively,  scientifically,  mechani- 
cally, from  the  point  of  view  of  the  laborer, 
[146] 


THE  PRICE  OF  PEACE 

from  the  point  of  view  of  the  captain  of  indus- 
try, all  interests,  all  capacities,  have  been  laid 
at  the  feet  of  the  Federal  government  as  the 
representative  and  the  administrator  for  the 
common  good.  Our  army  is  already  march- 
ing, a  part  of  it  overseas,  joining  hands  with  he- 
roes who  have  for  three  years  borne  the  burden 
and  the  brunt  of  this  great  struggle,  presenting 
now  to  civilized  mankind  a  spectacle  of  complete 
solidarity  among  the  civilized  nations  and  an  ir- 
resistible rampart  thrown  out  to  jam  back  and 
prevent  the  further  encroachment  of  a  medieval 
barbarism  upon  a  modern  world. 

Already  our  soldiers  are  in  France  in  substan- 
tial numbers.  And  already  we  are  training  them 
here  in  great  numbers.  Our  preparations  are 
made.  The  material  part  of  our  preparation  is 
advancing  rapidly,  and  the  spiritual  part  of  it 
is  even  more  impressive,  for  in  our  effort  to  pre- 
pare, we  have  learned  some  things  about  de- 
mocracy which  we  did  not  know.  We  knew  that 
it  was  beautiful,  but  we  were  not  certain  that 
it  was  strong.  We  knew  that  it  made  for  lib- 
erty and  for  freedom,  but  we  were  not  sure  that 
it  had  the  capacity  for  self-preservation  and  pro- 
tection against  this  kind  of  an  adversary.  And 
now  all  of  our  doubts  are  gone.  We  are  con- 
solidated as  one  people.  We  have  one  thought. 
We  have  abated  and  abandoned  all  of  our  sepa- 
ratist tendencies  and  differences  of  opinion.  We 
are  Americans  now,  ioining  hands  with  the  he- 
"[147] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

roes  of  France  and  England,  cheering  their 
wearied  spirits — if  there  be  a  wearied  spirit 
among  them — with  the  news  that  now  the  great 
civilized  powers  of  the  world  present  an  unbroken 
front  against  this  medieval  autocratic  invader, 
and  that  the  day  is  in  sight  when  peace  will  be 
written — permanent  peace — based  upon  those 
standards  of  justice,  equity,  and  humanity,  those 
rights  of  man  which  we  in  our  own  national 
experiment  have  demonstrated  really  to  be  the 
vital  principles  of  human  life. 


THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 

The  privates'  uniforms  of  the  United  States  are  not 
being  made  in  sweatshops;  for  once,  at  least,  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  assumes  the  character  of  a 
model  employer  in  a  vital  industry.  IVe  shall  set  our 
faces  resolutely  against  everything  which  seeks  to  break 
down  those  barriers  set  up  through  years  of  patient  la- 
bor against  the  enervation  and  dissipation  of  the  child- 
life,  and  of  the  woman-life,  and  of  the  man-life  of  the 
country. 

NATIONAL  CONSUMERS'  LEAGUE, 
BALTIMORE,  NOVEMBER  14,  1917. 

WE  have  a  curious  form  of  government,  not 
only  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  departure 
from  the  political  traditions  of  mankind  every- 
where, but  in  that  it  involves,  I  think,  more 
than  any  other  government  in  the  world,  the  co- 
operation of  the  volunteer  spirit. 

People  are  wont  to  say  in  America  that  when- 
ever a  grievance  arises  it  is  discussed,  an  or- 
ganization is  formed,  its  officers  get  together 
and  appoint  a  committee  and  then  it  is  all  over. 
In  a  sense  that  is  so.  We  do  multiply  commit- 
tees. We  get  up  societies  and  associations  and 
leagues  until  we  are  sometimes  weighted  down 
with  the  multifariousness  of  our  diverse  occu- 
pations and  interests,  and  are  disposed  to  ques- 
[149] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

tion  whether  or  not  many  of  them  may  not  be 
futile.  Yet  I  make  bold  to  say  that  if  we  were 
to  withdraw  from  the  effective  government  of 
the  United  States  the  voluntary  effort  which 
is  represented  by  sucft  associations,  our  govern- 
ment would  scarcely  exist  at  all. 

There  are  governments  which  take  into  their 
keeping  all  of  the  interests  and  all  of  the  life  of 
their  people.  They  make  a  calendar  by  which 
their  people  live.  They  have  the  trusteeship  and 
custodianship  of  the  intellectual  and  of  the  spir- 
itual life  of  their  people.  They  are  what  might 
be  called,  if  we  were  to  borrow  the  language  of 
modern  industry,  completely  integrated  govern- 
ments, and  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  the  citi- 
zen is  merely  playing  an  assigned  part  in  the 
life  of  the  state,  which  is  higher  than  the  citizen, 
and  for  which  and  for  whose  glory  the  citizen 
exists. 

Ours  is  an  entirely  different  policy,  an  entirely 
different  theory  of  government.  We  are  very 
jealous  about  institutionalizing  our  government. 
We  are  loath  to  make  laws.  I  realize  that  the 
vast  volumes  of  published  laws  which  come  from 
Congress  and  the  state  legislatures  every  year 
seem  enormous,  but  most  of  these  laws  are  to 
change  people's  names  or  do  other  immaterial 
things.  The  actual  body  of  fresh  institutional 
law  passed  in  any  one  year  in  the  United  States 
is  exceedingly  small,  and  fundamental  changes 
are  made  slowly,  with  reluctance.  We  are  ex- 
[150] 


THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 

ceedingly  loath  to  take  away  from  the  individual 
or  from  groups  of  individuals  any  part  of  the 
powers  or  rights  or  privileges  or  liberties  which 
at  one  time  they  enjoyed,  no  matter  how  incon- 
sistent they  may  have  become  with  a  more  ad- 
vanced state  of  our  industrial  civilization. 

For  a  supplement  to  this  institutionalizing  of 
our  life  we  rely  upon  voluntary  effort,  upon 
leagues  and  associations  and  committees  and 
groups.  Their  function  with  us  is  a  pioneering 
function.  They  take  up  the  slack  of  our  life; 
between  complete  autocracy  of  government  and 
a  neglect  almost  as  complete  by  government  of 
many  of  the  interests  of  life,  the  voluntary  asso- 
ciations perform  their  function.  They  discover 
the  undiscovered  country ;  they  keep  track  of  the 
development  of  things,  and  they  agitate  for 
remedies;  they  often  supply  remedies. 

I  do  not  want  to  pursue  the  speculative  sug- 
gestion too  far,  because  it  is  not  necessary  to 
justify  the  existence  of  the  Consumers'  League 
or  of  any  kindred  organization.  What  we  ac- 
tually do  is  to  go  out  into  the  life  of  America 
and  find  those  things  which  are  costing  us  more 
than  we  can  afford  to  pay,  things  which  cannot 
be  counted  in  dollars  and  cents,  which  are  just 
over  the  horizon  of  the  legislature's  eye,  things 
which  the  legislative  body  has  not  yet  appre- 
hended, as  it  were.  We  get  those  deadly  costs 
and  drag  them  into  light  and  place  them  within 
the  horizon  of  the  legislature,  so  that  after  a  while 
[151] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

what  has  been  discovered  by  some  such  society 
as  ours  as  a  neglected  social  duty,  comes  to  be 
recognized  as  an  unescapable  social  obligation. 

I  cannot  stop  to  illustrate  what  the  Consum- 
ers' League  has  given  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  but  if  you  will  run  over  in  your  minds  such 
organizations  as  our  League,  or  the  Child  Labor 
Committee,  or  the  Civil  Service  Reform  League, 
and  mentally  take  off  the  statute  books  of 
the  country  the  things  which  have  been  put  there 
through  such  voluntary  effort,  or  take  out  of 
our  public  life  and  consciousness  the  recognitions 
which  we  have  been  forced  to  make  through  the 
education  which  has  come  from  such  societies, 
you  will  realize,  I  think,  that  organizations  like 
these  are,  in  a  sense,  the  forerunners  of  govern- 
ment. They  are  an  essential  part  of  the  Ameri- 
can theory  of  government,  of  the  American  gov- 
ernment itself;  they  are  as  essential  as  are  the 
more  formalized  parts  of  it,  which  appear  in 
persons  who  hold  public  office,  or  in  laws  which 
appear  written  down  in  cold  words  upon  the 
statute  books. 

The  importance  of  the  whole  speculation  to  me 
is  this:  Our  country  is,  of  course,  in  the  most  se- 
rious situation  it  has  ever  been  in  our  history,  se- 
rious not  alone  because  we  are  engaged  in  a  great 
war.  Terrible  as  wars  are  and  terrible  as  this 
war  is,  we  have  had  trying  times  in  this  country 
before,  and  have  been  engaged  in  wars  when 
the  right  seemed  to  hang  by  a  very  delicate  bal- 
[152] 


THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 

ance;  there  were  many  periods  of  time  when  it 
seemed  as  though  the  right  might  perhaps  not 
prevail.  We  are  in  a  serious  condition  because 
this  war  is  the  first  war  in  history  since  modern 
industrialism  came  into  existence.  It  is  the  first 
war  in  the  world  on  such  a  large  scale  and  among 
highly  civilized  peoples  since  transportation  be- 
came so  large  a  factor  in  life.  It  is  the  first  war 
of  any  large  proportion  since  the  recent  and  very 
great  advances  of  science  have  been  made,  and, 
therefore,  it  is  the  most  deadly  war.  I  do  not 
mean  in  the  actual  number  of  killed,  but  I  mean 
in  the  destructive  effect  upon  the  human  ele- 
ments engaged  in  it,  it  is  surely  the  most  deadly 
war  that  we  have  ever  had. 

It  is  the  first  war  in  which  such  enormous 
masses  of  men  have  been  engaged.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean  the  entire  man-power  of  the 
nations  is  mobilized,  until  all  fields  of  life  have 
had  men  drafted  away  from  them.  From  all  the 
callings,  from  the  most  necessary  of  all,  agri- 
culture, men  have  been  taken  and  have  been  con- 
verted, for  the  time  being  into  men  of  war,  and 
tremendous  problems  have  resulted  from  this. 

Only  one  or  two  of  these  problems  can  be  con- 
sidered by  us  at  this  time.  The  United  States 
has  gone  into  this  war.  Inevitably,  the  taking  of 
a  million,  or  a  million  and  a  half,  or  two  million, 
or  any  other  large  number  of  men  out  of  the  in- 
dustrial and  commercial  life  of  our  nation  is  go- 
ing to  make  itself  felt.  There  will  be  fewer  men 
[153] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

in  the  workshops.  There  will  be  fewer  men  in  the 
professions.  There  will  be  fewer  men  in  the  col- 
leges, either  as  students  or  as  teachers.  There 
will  be  fewer  men  in  agriculture  and  in  many  of 
the  industries  which  we  have  regarded  as  vital. 
As  yet,  the  draft  is  relatively  small;  as  the  war 
progresses,  it  is  going  to  be  increasingly  large, 
and  as  the  draft  increases,  the  need  for  an  indus- 
trial output  will  grow  correspondingly  greater. 

Those  nations  with  whom  we  are  allied  in  this 
conflict  are  getting  further  and  further  away 
from  their  former  productivity.  Their  work- 
shops and  factories  are  being  rilled  by  boys  and 
women  who  have  learned  to  perform  only  one 
operation  of  what  was  originally  a  craft  or  a 
trade.  The  all-around  craftsmen,  the  journey- 
men working  in  industry,  are  becoming  fewer  and 
fewer  in  those  countries,  while  on  the  other 
hand  their  natural  resources  are  necessarily  much 
diminished  and  are  constantly  decreasing.  This 
throws  back  upon  us,  as  the  freshest,  most  unex- 
hausted and  I  hope,  in  a  proper  sense,  the  least 
exhaustible  of  all  the  countries  arrayed  on  our 
side,  an  increasing  burden  to  feed  and  supply 
the  world. 

Now,  unfortunately,  machinery  has  given  us 
one  great  delusion.  People  have  imagined  that 
when  a  machine  was  operated  by  a  steam  engine 
or  by  an  electric  motor,  the  steam  engine  or  the 
electric  motor  actually  did  all  the  work  and  the 
people  who  were  attending  it  while  it  operated 
[154] 


THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 

were  more  or  less  negligible.  As  a  consequence, 
we  indulged  ourselves  in  the  very  unfortunate 
and  often  fatal  belief  that  unlimited  hours  of 
labor  were  possible  because  it  was  the  machines 
which  were  doing  the  work.  And  now  with  this 
pressure  upon  us  from  all  over  the  world  for  an 
increased  supply  of  food  and  industrial  mate- 
rials of  all  kinds,  the  great  temptation  is  to  hug 
that  delusion  to  our  hearts  and  demand  of  our 
men,  women  and  children  in  industry  that 
they  give  us  longer  hours  of  work.  We  over- 
look the  fact,  which  we  had  lately  begun  to  ap- 
preciate, that  the  person  who  tends  the  power- 
driven  machine  is  far  more  susceptible  to  ex- 
haustion, is  far  more  open  to  fatigue  and  to  the 
poisons  that  come  from  over-exertion  and  affect 
the  system  than  ever  before. 

We  are  likely  to  overlook  that  truth.  Yet  if 
we  do  overlook  it,  we  shall  have  in  addition  to 
the  terrible  cost  of  the  loss  of  life  involved  in  bat- 
tle, an  equally  terrible  though  far  less  spectacular 
cost  at  home  in  the  devitalized  life  of  the  men  and 
women  and  children  in  industry  upon  whom,  as 
a  foundation,  the  whole  social,  industrial  and 
military  structure  of  the  country  must  rest. 

Now,  because  of  our  realization  of  these  things 
the  call  comes  to  the  Consumers'  League — as  one 
of  these  semi-governmental  institutions,  as  one 
of  these  silent  partners  in  the  government — that 
if  it  ever  was  busy  it  shall  now  redouble  its  busi- 
ness; that  if  it  ever  had  a  call  to  point  out  to 
[155] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

the  American  people  the  drain  on  life  from  in- 
dustrialism and  long  hours  of  labor  and  insani- 
tary housing  and  the  like,  that  call  shall  now  be 
raised  to  the  nth  power.  For  this  is  the  moment 
when  the  imagination  of  the  American  people  is 
most  likely  to  fail  on  that  subject.  They  are  most 
likely  to  demand  goods  in  increasing  quantities 
and  not  to  stop  to  ask  the  cost  of  them. 

We  are  taking  out  of  industrial  life  now  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  of  men.  The  number  of  women 
employed  in  our  industries  is  being  greatly  in- 
creased. I  have  no  doubt  that  the  inspectors 
who  are  charged  with  the  duty  of  enforcing  State 
child  labor  laws  are  having  more  and  more  in- 
sistent demands  from  employers  that  they  relax 
their  vigilance  in  the  interest  of  the  national 
output.  I  have  not  the  least  doubt,  as  a  matter 
of  fact  I  have  some  very  definite  knowledge,  that 
employers  who  have  contracts  with  the  Govern- 
ment or  with  the  Allies,  or  who  make  things  more 
or  less  necessary  to  the  life  of  the  people,  are 
constantly  saying  to  themselves  and  to  State  en- 
forcing agencies  and  to  me  as  Secretary  of  War 
and  as  a  member  of  the  Council  of  National  De- 
fense: "This  is  not  the  time  to  worry  about 
those  restrictions;  this  is  not  the  time  to  enforce 
these  laws  about  children  and  women  and  their 
hours  and  condition  of  labor ;  too  large  and  mo- 
mentous events  are  moving  now  for  anybody  to. 
be  delayed  by  these  things."  That  demand  is  being 
made  everywhere.  Now,  the  duty  of  the  Con- 
[156] 


THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 

sumers'  League  and  of  every  member  of  it,  and 
of  everybody  who  knows  its  philosophy  and  be- 
lieves in  it,  is  to  set  his  face  resolutely  against 
everything  that  on  any  pretext  seeks  to  break 
down  those  barriers  which  we  have  set  up 
through  years  of  patient  labor,  against  the  ener- 
vation and  dissipation  of  the  child-life  and  of 
the  woman-life  and  of  the  man-life  of  this  coun- 
try. 

While  we  have  sometimes  done  some  things  in 
the  way  of  relaxation  I  think  the  Council  of  Na- 
tional Defense  has  not  done  very  much  in  that 
direction,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Govern- 
ment has  rather  advanced  the  standards  de- 
manded in  industry  since  the  war  began  than 
relaxed  them.  I  feel  perfectly  certain  as  to  nine- 
tenths  of  the  work  done  for  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment since  we  went  into  this  war,  that  the  con- 
ditions of  hours,  of  pay,  of  sanitation  and  su- 
pervision under  which  the  work  is  done,  are  bet- 
ter than  they  would  have  been  under  circum- 
stances existing  prior  to  our  entrance.  But  I  say 
this  not  to  claim  credit.  I  say  it  because  to  that 
extent  the  Government  has  recognized  this  most 
solemn  of  all  facts,  that  it  will  do  us  no  good 
whatever  to  send  our  sons  to  France  to  fight  for 
our  political  rights  if,  while  they  are  waging  the 
battle,  we  surrender  our  industrial  and  our  social 
rights  here  at  home. 

We  are  gradually  learning,  I  think,  that  lib- 
erty is  of  a  piece  with  all  of  its  parts ;  all  of  which 
[157] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

we  must  acquire  if  we  are  to  enjoy  any  one  or 
more  of  them.  I  have  the  right  to  go  to  Florida 
and  spend  the  winter.  It  does  me  no  good.  I  have 
not  the  time  and  I  have  not  the  money,  so  that 
my  one-cornered  liberty  is  an  ideal  possession 
and  is  enjoyed  only  when  I  have  the  leisure  to 
indulge  in  imaginary  pleasure.  And  so  it  is 
with  political  liberties.  It  does  us  no  good  to 
be  able  to  vote  for  people;  it  does  us  no  good  to 
be  able  to  call  ourselves  free  and  to  describe  our 
land  as  the  land  of  the  free  unless  we  have  all 
the  component  parts  of  real  freedom.  And  that 
means  unless  we  have  the  political  liberty  to  recast 
our  industrial  life  so  that  it  will  really  be  a  life  of 
opportunity  to  the  humblest  person  who  shares  it. 
Now,  our  sons  are  going  to  France.  When 
they  have  finally  done  the  thing  which  they  must 
do,  when  they  have  finally  established  on  the 
frontiers  of  France  the  eternal  dominance  of 
free  over  autocratic  institutions,  when  they  have 
done  that,  they  will  come  home.  When  they 
come  back  they  will  see  the  Statue  of  Liberty. 
They  will  sail  into  New  York  harbor  proud  of 
their  victories,  proud  of  their  honors.  And 
when  they  come  I  do  not  want  them  to  find  here  a 
dissipated  and  depressed  life.  I  do  not  want  them 
to  find  that  they  have  been  trying  to  gain  one  cor- 
ner of  freedom  while  the  others  have  been  ut- 
terly lost ;  but  I  want  them  to  come  back  to  wives 
and  sisters  and  mothers  and  brothers  and  chil- 
dren filled  with  robust  health,  people  who  have 
[158] 


THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 

worked  in  industry  and  commerce,  people  who 
have  produced  the  goods  upon  which  life  de- 
pends, people  who  have  filled  the  workshops  and 
the  factories  and  the  fields  with  labor,  done  under 
wholesome  conditions.  Let  them  find  that,  as 
they  were  fighting  at  one  end  of  the  frontier  and 
winning  one  corner  of  freedom's  fields,  we  at 
home  were  enlarging  the  boundaries  of  indus- 
trial liberty,  that  we  were  laying  out  new  bounda- 
ries of  real  freedom  here  among  ourselves,  that 
we  were  enlarging  the  lessons  we  had  hitherto 
learned  of  the  value,  the  indispensableness  of 
wholesome  conditions  for  people  who  perform  the 
labor  of  the  world,  and  establishing  conditions 
which  it  will  be  a  privilege  for  them  to  come  back 
to  rather  than  a  grief. 

It  is  the  special  function  of  the  Consumers' 
League  to  continue  its  work  along  that  line.  May 
I  drop  my  character  as  President  of  the  League 
for  a  moment,  in  order  to  thank  the  League 
for  the  help  it  has  already  given?  I  have,  as 
most  of  you  know,  borrowed  the  General  Secre- 
tary of  the  Consumers'  League.  She  will  tell 
you,  and  I  have  not  the  slightest  objection  to  its 
being  told,  that  one  particular  branch  of  work 
about  which  she  happens  to  know,  the  privates' 
uniforms  of  the  Army  of  the  United  States,  is 
not  being  done  in  sweatshops.  Not  one  of  those 
uniforms  is  being  made  in  sweatshops !  Arrange- 
ments have  been  made  for  the  manufacture  of  the 
clothing  of  the  Army,  so  that  it  is  now  substan- 
[159] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

tially  all  being  made  under  sanitary  conditions, 
not  in  the  homes  of  people  who  have  to  live  in  con- 
gested places,  but  under  suitable  restrictions  as  to 
hours  of  labor  and  under  proper  wage  scales,  so 
that  for  once  at  least  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  assumes  the  character  of  a  model 
employer  in  a  vital  industry. 

That  it  was  possible  to  find  the  enlightenment 
to  bring  about  this  result  is  one  of  the  glories  of 
the  Consumers'  League.  A  victory  has  been  won 
here  at  home,  one  that  will  not  appear  in  the 
newspapers  as  will  a  victory  at  arms,  but  yet  a 
real  victory  for  better  conditions. 

You  have  the  opportunity  as  you  scatter 
throughout  the  various  States  of  this  Union  to 
raise  your  voices  against  a  relaxation  of  the 
standards  which  you  have  so  largely  achieved. 
You  have  an  opportunity  to  be  explicit  in  teach- 
ing and  impressing  the  lesson  that  we  cannot 
afford,  when  we  are  losing  boys  in  France,  to  lose 
children  in  the  United  States  at  the  same  time; 
that  we  cannot  afford  when  this  nation  is  suffer- 
ing a  drain  upon  the  life  of  its  young  manhood, 
which  is  not  learning  the  crafts  by  which  the  in- 
dustrial and  agricultural  life  of  the  nation  is  here- 
after to  be  sustained — we  cannot  afford  to  have 
the  vitality  of  women  workers  of  the  United 
States  depressed.  If  the  Consumers'  League  and 
its  affiliated  and  kindred  organizations  will  take 
its  stand  on  this  platform  and  preach  it  con- 
stantly, in  season  and  out  of  season,  then  truly, 
[160] 


THE  REPUBLIC  AS  EMPLOYER 

while  some  of  the  direct  losses  of  this  war  will 
be  irremediable,  there  will  nevertheless  be  some 
by-products  from  it  which  will  count  for  social 
gains  among  us.  After  the  wastage  of  the  war 
has  really  come  to  an  end,  there  will  be  a  solid 
foundation  of  ground  gained  here  at  home  upon 
which  further  social  advance  and  reconstruction 
can  proceed. 


[I61J 


PROBLEMS  OF  THE  MELTING  POT 

A  broken  accent  does  not  mean  a  broken  mind  or  any 
lack  of  loyalty,  but  let  us  not  hesitate  a  second  when  we 
find  a  man  eating  our  bread  and  drinking  of  the  milk  of 
plenty  who  is  disloyal! 

ANNUAL  CONVENTION  OF  POLICE  CHIEFS, 
WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER  4,  1917. 

HERE  is  assembled  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant bodies  of  men  in  America.  I  say  that, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  am  a  member  of  it.  I 
trust  your  memories  are  not  so  short  nor  your 
records  so  ill  kept  as  to  fail  to  disclose  the  fact  that 
years  ago  I  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Inter- 
national Association  of  Chiefs  of  Police,  and  that 
I  have  since  carried  the  card  of  the  association  in 
my  pocket.  I  remember  there  was  some  little 
controversy  in  our  association  on  the  question  of 
whether  an  election  to  honorary  membership 
lasted  more  than  a  single  year.  I  don't  know 
how  that  trouble  was  settled.  But  always,  when 
I  go  to  a  strange  place,  I  carry  my  card  so  that 
if  by  any  chance  I  shall  be  mistaken  for  some 
man  with  other  than  honorable  intentions,  I 
will  be  able  to  impress  upon  any  of  your  sub- 
ordinates the  fact  that  I  am  to  be  treated  with 
[162] 


PROBLEMS  OF  THE  MELTING  POT 

proper   consideration   and   to   have   all    favors 
shown. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  have  had  a  great  many 
years  of  intimate  association  with  policemen  and 
police  commissioners.  For  nine  or  ten  years  as 
City  Solicitor  of  Cleveland,  I  was  the  police 
prosecutor.  Chief  Koehler  used  to  say  that  it  was 
his  business  to  arrest  men  and  mine  to  convict  a 
few  of  those  he  arrested,  and  Cooley's  job — Dr. 
Cooley  was  the  Director  of  Public  Welfare — to 
parole  all  I  convicted.  Later,  when  I  came  to  be 
Mayor  of  Cleveland,  I  had  the  rare  privilege  of 
constant  association  with  a  man  whose  name 
ought  to  be  in  some  way  permanently  enrolled  in 
the  records  of  this  association  as  one  of  the  really 
great  police  chiefs  that  this  country  has  had — 
I  mean  W.  S.  Rowe,  present  Police  Chief  of 
Cleveland.  Most  of  you  must  know  Chief  Rowe. 
In  all  the  years  I  knew  him,  it  was  his  mind  that 
was  doing  the  organizing  and  the  solid,  steady 
work  upon  which  the  construction  of  a  police  force 
must  depend  for  its  soundness  and  stability. 
When  he  came  to  be  chief  of  the  department,  his 
work  was  characterized  by  a  sense  of  justice  and 
a  plain,  homely  common  sense,  which  made 
his  administration  an  outstanding  one  and  which 
contributed  very  greatly,  so  far  as  Cleveland  was 
concerned,  to  placing  the  business  of  a  policeman 
upon  a  very  high  plane  in  the  public  respect  of 
the  community.  I  saw  in  the  papers  some  days 
ago  that  Chief  Rowe  had  decided  to  resign.  If 
[163] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

that  is  true,  it  ends,  I  think,  forty-two  or  forty- 
three  years  of  continuous  service,  and  while  I 
have  no  present  recollection  of  what  the  record 
books  should  show,  I  am  confident  that  an  exami- 
nation of  that  record  from  the  first  day  he  went 
in  as  a  patrolman  would  not  show  a  single  justi- 
fiable criticism  upon  his  career. 

So  you  see  I  have  had  some  contact  with  police- 
men. I  am  having  a  very  much  valued  contact 
with  policemen  now.  The  War  Department  is  in- 
terested in  the  training  of  a  great  army.  The 
country  is  in  a  situation  where  the  possibility  of 
trouble  exists  in  many  of  our  cities  in  various 
parts  of  the  country.  We  are  dealing  with  an  era 
in  the  enforcement  of  police  regulations  and  the 
preservation  of  peace  and  order  in  our  communi- 
ties, which  is  accompanied  by  peculiar  difficulties 
and  embarrassments.  The  War  Department  is 
called  upon  in  many  instances  to  cooperate  in  the 
task.  On  Sunday  last,  happening  to  be  in  the 
city  of  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  I  saw  a  mili- 
tary patrol  on  the  streets — soldiers  doing  the 
work  of  policemen, — limiting  their  activities  of 
course  to  soldiers  who  were  in  the  town,  but 
walking  arm  in  arm  and  hand  in  hand,  both  in 
fact  and  in  theory,  with  the  civilian  policemen, 
who  were  looking  after  their  own  work.  I  was 
delighted  to  find  that  this  military  police  force, 
established  to  care  for  the  soldier  part  of  the 
new  population  of  the  city,  was  fitting  in  har- 
moniously and  that  the  soldiers  respected  the  po- 
[164] 


PROBLEMS  OF  THE  MELTING  POT 

lice  and  the  police  respected  the  soldiers.  Ap- 
parently a  clear  understanding  has  been  brought 
about  between  the  military  and  civilian  police- 
men by  which  cooperation  is  everywhere  achieved 
and  harmonious  work  is  being  done. 

But  our  activities  go  further  than  that;  in  or- 
der that  this  army  shall  be  made  a  strong  and 
vigorous  army,  the  military  camps  must  permit 
no  opportunity  for  unruly  and  lawless  persons  to 
come  into  the  neighborhood  and  practice  their 
wiles  and  vices.  The  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  acting  through  the  War  Department  and 
granting  to  it  very  wide  powers,  has  made  it  very 
evident  that  it  is  the  will  of  the  people  that  the 
environment  of  our  training  camps  shall  be  kept 
clean  and  wholesome.  The  Department  of  Jus- 
tice is  working  to  the  same  end,  and  so  are  other 
agencies,  both  governmental  and  unofficial. 

In  the  last  analysis,  however,  the  situation  in 
any  community  rests  primarily  on  the  people  who 
live  there,  and  their  representatives  of  law  and 
order.  The  War  Department  is  looking  to  the 
Chiefs  of  Police  of  the  United  States  to  co- 
operate with  it  in  carrying  out  the  purposes  of 
Congress  and  the  purposes  of  the  Government  in 
creating  an  Army  which  will  not  only  be  able  to 
win  victory  on  the  battlefield  but  will  be  truly 
representative  of  the  best  civilian  standards  of 
the  United  States. 

Therefore  I  started  out  with  the  statement  that 
this  is  one  of  the  bodies  of  men  in  America  which 
[165] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

at  this  moment  I  believe  to  be  among  the  most 
important.  Our  country  is  at  war!  We  have 
just  started  in  that  war  and  in  all  human  likeli- 
hood our  energies  and  activities  will  be  more  and 
more  fully  engaged  in  it.  It  will  be  necessary  for 
us  to  send  larger  and  larger  bodies  of  troops.  We 
can,  if  we  choose  to,  send  over  men  with  balance 
and  training,  men  who  know  how  to  command, 
and  citizens  who  know  how  to  live  in  those  foreign 
countries  and  who  will  win  two  kinds  of  victories 
when  they  go  over  there — one  over  their  enemies 
and  one  over  themselves.  They  will  bring  back 
two  kinds  of  laurels — the  laurels  that  successful 
soldiers  bring  back  in  the  accomplishment  of  the 
purposes  of  their  nation  when  the  treaties  come 
to  be  written — the  other  kind  of  laurel,  the  respect 
and  affection  of  the  civil  population  with  whom 
they  have  lived,  who  in  after  years  will  think  with 
affection  of  the  men  of  this  nation.  I  take  very 
great  joy  from  the  fact  that  General  Pershing  was 
in  Mexico  for  many  months — the  greater  part  of 
that  time  at  one  place — and  when  he  came  out 
of  Mexico,  he  was  accompanied  by  a  very  large 
part  or  all  of  the  civil  population  of  the  surround- 
ing country.  Our  troops  were  there  not  as  con- 
querors ;  they  were  there  just  as  men,  having  the 
military  object  of  protecting  our  own  fron- 
tier, and  not  practicing  cruelty  upon  the  civil 
population  among  whom  they  were  situated,  and 
they  gave  peace  and  quiet  and  confidence  and  in- 
dustry and  opportunity  to  those  people  such  as 
[166] 


PROBLEMS  OF  THE  MELTING  POT 

they  had  never  had  before.  General  Pershing 
and  his  troops  came  back  to  the  United  States 
out  of  Mexico  with  a  great  train  of  Mexican 
farmers,  merchants  and  small  people  among 
whom  they  had  lived,  who  came  out  with  them 
because  they  preferred  civilization  as  represented 
by  General  Pershing' s  army,  to  the  lawless  con- 
ditions which  had  obtained  in  their  own  country 
for  a  long  period  of  time.  When  our  Army  comes 
back  from  France,  I  don't  want  it  to  win  the 
French  people  away  from  their  own  soil  and  bring 
them  along,  unless  they  want  to  come.  I  don't 
imagine,  knowing  the  tenderness  of  a  Frenchman 
for  his  own  vines  and  pastures  and  gardens,  that 
this  will  be  one  of  the  products  of  victory  in  this 
war;  I  can't  imagine  that  many  French  people 
will  come  back  with  our  soldiers.  But  I  want  our 
soldiers  to  bring  the  hearts  of  the  French  people 
with  them,  I  want  them  to  bring  back  their  re- 
spect, and  the  only  way  they  can  do  that  is  by  in- 
stilling into  them  such  principles  as  high-minded 
men  should  have,  so  that  they  may  have  respect 
for  the  rights  of  others,  and  by  so  training  their 
minds  to  honor  and  justice  before  they  go  over, 
that  the  French  people  will  recognize  in  them  the 
highest  type  of  citizenship. 

You  gentlemen,  in  that  case,  will  have  to  help. 
The  Chiefs  of  Police  and  the  policemen  of  the 
cities  in  the  neighborhood  of  these  camps  are 
representatives  of  law  and  order.  A  harsh  and 
intolerant  attitude  towards  the  soldier,  an  un- 
[167] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

intelligent  attitude,  will  be  provocative  of  resent- 
ment, while  a  kindly  and  sympathetic  attitude  to- 
wards him  will  inoculate  him  with  high-minded 
ideals  of  law  and  order.  In  addition  to  what  he 
gets  from  the  War  Department  in  the  nature  of 
military  training  I  want  him  to  get  from  the 
cities  in  which  he  lives  the  idea  of  citizenship,  and 
I  shall  be  perfectly  content  to  have  these  young 
soldiers  of  ours  acquire  their  idea  of  duty  and  of 
justice  from  you,  if  you  will  make  it  manifest  to 
them  what  your  own  ideas  on  those  subjects  are. 
You  have  one  other  duty  in  this  critical  time. 
We  are  already  at  war  with  Germany,  and 
the  President  to-day  has  asked  Congress  to  de- 
clare war  on  Austria-Hungary.  There  are  num- 
bers of  people  in  the  United  States  who  were 
born  in  Germany  and  in  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Empire.  There  are  many  people  whose  ances- 
tors came  from  one  or  the  other  of  those 
countries.  Many  of  those  people  came  to  this 
country  because  they  were  dissatisfied  with 
their  institutions,  dissatisfied  with  the  opportuni- 
ties which  those  countries  afforded  them — many 
of  those  people  who  have  come  here  have  been 
rebaptized  with  the  American  spirit.  They  have 
married  this  country  for  better  or  for  worse, 
and  they  are  citizens  of  this  country.  There  are 
some  of  them  who  think  they  were  married  to  this 
country,  who  have  been  suddenly  and  rudely  di- 
vorced. There  are  some  men  who  made  a  mock 
marriage  of  it.  I  am  persuaded  that  there  are 
[168] 


PROBLEMS  OF  THE  MELTING  POT 

not  many  such,  but  with  the  growth  in  intensity 
of  our  efforts  in  this  war,  there  has  developed  a 
feeling  that  the  activities  of  such  disloyal  people 
as  there  may  be  must  be  suppressed  by  you. 
Therefore  it  is  part  of  your  opportunity  in  this 
hour  of  universal  service  to  our  country  and 
its  ideals,  it  is  part  of  your  opportunity  to 
search  out  disloyalty  and  to  prevent  the  sapping 
of  the  strength  of  our  nation  here  at  home,  to  re- 
strain any  seditious  activities  on  the  part  of  those 
who  have  enjoyed  the  protection  of  American  in- 
stitutions and  have  nothing  to  give  in  return  but 
the  undermining  of  its  liberties  and  its  strength. 
That  is  a  great  opportunity  for  you,  and  it  is  an 
especially  difficult  opportunity  because  it  calls 
upon  you  to  discriminate  with  wisdom  and  patience 
between  those  who  are  disloyal  and  those  who 
merely  have  ties  of  blood  and  tradition  with  one 
of  these  countries,  but  who  really  and  in  spirit  are 
Americans.  You  and  I  are  both  too  wise  and  we 
have  had  too  much  experience  in  this  country  to 
imagine  that  a  broken  accent  means  a  broken 
mind,  or  that  a  non- American  name,  or  the  inabil- 
ity to  speak  readily  our  language  means  any 
lack  of  loyalty  in  the  man  or  in  his  make-up. 
So  I  say  it  ought  to  be  your  effort,  as  it  ought  to 
be  the  effort  of  all  right-thinking  people  in  this 
country,  to  learn  to  apply  the  principles  of  justice 
and  fair  dealing  that  have  protected  the  oppressed 
of  the  world  for  more  than  one  hundred  years, 
and  to  prevent  all  those  injustices  that  come 
[169] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

from  haste,  ignorance  and  suspicion.  But  never 
let  us  hesitate  a  second  when  we  find  a  man  living 
here,  eating  of  our  bread  and  drinking  of  the  milk 
of  plenty,  when  we  find  that  man  disloyal !  The 
man  who  strikes  us  in  the  back,  who  undertakes 
to  sap  our  strength  through  fire  or  otherwise, 
let  us  see  that  he  is  rendered  harmless  to  accom- 
plish any  such  purpose  against  the  Government 
and  our  people.  I  doubt  whether  any  group  of 
people  in  this  country  has  a  more  deliberate 
responsibility  than  you  have.  It  covers  the  whole 
continent  of  America  in  its  scope.  It  is  part  of 
your  daily  duty ;  it  is  a  matter  of  having  an  oppor- 
tunity and  these  unusual  circumstances  and  the 
conduct  of  this  war  will  depend  to  a  very  large 
degree  upon  the  wisdom  and  patience,  fair-mind- 
edness and  vigor  with  which  you  exercise  the 
functions  that  are  entrusted  to  you. 

In  the  training  of  our  army  those  things  must 
be  separated  out  that  make  up  that  part  of  the 
town  which  collects  the  worst  kinds  of  young 
men — there  must  be  a  separation  of  those 
things  from  a  training  camp  in  order  that  our 
soldiers  may  be  well  in  body  and  well  in  mind  and 
spirit.  Napoleon  said  that  in  war,  morale  is  to 
force  as  three  to  one.  Everybody  in  this  room, 
everybody  in  this  nation,  wants  us  to  win  this 
war.  Now  we  want  to  win  it  with  our  strength 
and  our  strength  is  a  basis  of  four  parts ;  one  of 
them  is  our  force,  according  to  Napoleon,  the 
other  three  are  our  morale,  according  to  Napo- 
[170] 


PROBLEMS  OF  THE  MELTING  POT 

Icon.  You  gentlemen  are  in  part  the  manufac- 
turers of  morale  of  the  nation.  You  are,  there- 
fore, contributors  to  the  manufacture  of  three- 
fourths  of  the  aggregate  of  the  nation's  natural 
strength  with  which  we  go  into  this  enterprise. 

I  hope  that  everybody  in  this  room  will  read 
the  President's  message  to  Congress  to-day  un- 
less he  has  already  read  it.  Every  now  and  then 
somebody  says  that  he  does  not  know  what  this 
war  is  about — he  does  not  know  why  the  United 
States  is  in  it — he  does  not  know  what  we  want 
to  get  out  of  it.  Of  course  the  fact  is  that  we  don't 
want  to  get  anything  out  of  it;  we  want  to  do 
something.  The  President,  as  our  leader,  has 
hitched  his  wagon  to  a  star  and  leads  not  only 
America  but  the  people  of  the  world.  This  is 
what  it  means  for  the  greatest  nation  in  the 
world  to  enter  into  this  conflict.  We  want  to 
establish  justice  among  men  and  equal  oppor- 
tunity among  men.  We  want  to  establish  the 
same  sort  of  respect  for  law  and  order  among  the 
nations  that  you  gentlemen  have  spent  your  lives 
trying  to  establish  among  the  civilian  population 
of  the  cities  of  this  country.  Just  consider  the 
things  that  you  are  trying  to  enforce  day  by 
day — justice  and  respect  for  the  rights  of  others, 
consideration  and  sympathy.  I  know  the  police- 
man far  better  than  to  imagine  that  the  club  which 
he  carries  is  anything  more  than  the  symbol  of  his 
function.  Occasions  arise  in  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity when  the  club  must  be  used,  but  they  are 
[171] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

rare  and  exceptional.  In  the  world  at  large  and 
at  the  present  moment,  we  have  the  spectacle  of  a 
member  of  the  family  of  nations  corresponding 
in  this  larger  sphere  to  the  disturber  of  the  city 
streets,  and  he  must  be  dealt  with  in  the  same 
way  as  a  disturber.  Our  mission  in  this  war 
like  your  mission  in  the  cities  in  which  you  live 
is  to  attempt  to  establish  a  definite  atmosphere 
of  just  conditions  among  men. 


[172] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

/  know  how  the  Channel  looks  by  night.  I  have  seen 
those  waves  when  the  moon  was  shining  on  them,  and  I 
luive  thought,  "Surely,  this  is  the  golden  path  that  leads  to 
the  Favored  Isles."  I  have  seen  the  moon  shining  down 
on  the  chalk  cliffs  and  have  thought  the  foam-flecked 
waves  a  wonderful  sight.  But  when  I  think  of  those 
chalk  cliffs  and  those  moon-lit  waves  now,  I  see  only  the 
white  shrouds  of  countless  women  and  children  who  have 
gone  down  with  the  sea  for  their  grave  and  the  white 
cliffs  for  their  monument. 

STATE  COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE,  RICHMOND, 
DECEMBER  5,  1917. 

HAPPY  is  the  nation  which  in  the  midst  of  a 
great  war  can  return  from  the  examination 
of  its  conscience  with  a  smile.  After  sevenscore 
years  devoted  to  the  arts  of  peace  and  industry; 
after  having  spent  money  and  men  in  experiments 
in  free  institutions,  and  after  devoting  itself  to  the 
culture  of  intellect  and  morality,  at  last  this  great 
nation  finds  itself  no  longer  able  to  abstain  from 
foreign  complications,  but  actually  plunged  into 
the  heart  of  a  great  war.  When  it  proceeds  to 
take  stock  of  its  conscience  and  to  ask  itself 
whether  its  cause  is  just,  it  comes  back  from  that 
examination  with  a  spring  in  its  step,  its  head 
erect,  conscious  that  it  did  all  it  could  to  preserve 
[173] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

peace  among1  men  and  that  when  it  took  up  arms, 
it  took  them  up  in  defense  of  priceless  principles, 
more  valuable  than  life  itself. 

I  have  sometimes  sought  to  ask  myself  when 
this  war  began,  and  I  find  that  each  answer  I  give 
has  ancestors,  and  I  have  to  inquire  as  to  the 
biography  of  those  ancestors ;  and  when  occasion- 
ally I  think  I  am  at  a  resting  place,  I  discover 
another  set  of  ancestors  for  this  war. 

I  shall  not  undertake  any  lengthy  examination 
of  history  to-night,  but  I  ask  your  attention  at 
the  outset  to  that  Frederick,  who  was  called  Great, 
and  whose  most  spectacular  achievement,  upon 
reaching  his  throne,  was  to  set  upon  Austria 
and  rip  from  her  a  splendid  ancestral  domain, 
apparently  for  no  reason  except  that  he  needed 
it,  and  having  no  justification,  except  that  Marie 
Theresa  was  young  and  beautiful,  which  did  not 
matter;  and  helpless,  which  did  not  matter;  and 
a  woman,  which  did  not  matter.  His  next  illus- 
trious experiment  was  the  partition  of  Poland. 
With  a  cynicism  which  I  think  has  not  been  equal- 
ed in  recent  history,  and  has  no  parallel  among 
his  contemporaries,  he  scoffed  at  the  idea  that 
kings  and  dynasties  were  limited  or  bound  by 
moral  considerations,  or  indeed  by  any  considera- 
tion, except  force  and  success.  And  that  same 
Frederick,  who  was  called  Great,  and  whose  prin- 
ciples are  those  upon  which  the  reigning  house  of 
Prussia  has  built  its  subsequent  conduct,  is  the 
greatest  Hohenzollern  of  them  all.  And  so, 
[174] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

when  we  think  of  this  war  and  try  to  trace 
it  back  to  its  ancestors,  I  think  we  can,  without 
injustice  and  with  due  regard  to  historical  veri- 
ties, say  that  this  war  had  its  birth  in  the  prom- 
inence which  was  given  by  Frederick  the  Great  to 
certain  immoral  doctrines  affecting  the  conduct 
of  states  and  governments. 

These  immoral  doctrines  are  that  a  state  is  not 
bound  by  the  laws  of  honor ;  that  treaties  made  by 
it  are  merely  covenants  of  convenience  and  that 
they  may  be  torn  up  into  scraps  of  paper  at  the 
will  of  whichever  of  the  signers  is  able  with  his 
strength  to  cover  his  dishonor.  The  second  prin- 
ciple is  that  no  consideration  of  humanity  shall 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  success  of  a  military  en- 
terprise. These  doctrines  are  hateful  and  con- 
temptible to  us.  The  man  who  by  virtue  of  his 
physical  strength  and  brute  force  imposes  his 
will  upon  his  neighbors  is  deserving  the  con- 
tempt of  the  people  among  whom  he  lives;  and  a 
man  who  by  his  physical  force  imposes  it  upon 
the  weakness  and  defenselessness  of  children  is 
a  bully  and  coward. 

Now,  time  was  when  that  was  not  true  of  na- 
tions. But  it  has  become  true  of  nations  and  the 
difficulty  with  the  German  Emperor  and  the  cause 
of  this  war  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  government 
of  Germany  imagines  that  civilization  consists  of 
universities,  learned  doctors,  the  transformation 
of  chemicals  into  deadly  compounds  and  physical 
elements  into  new  substances  of  manufacture, 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

without  reference  to  spiritual  values  and  moral 
growth. 

When  the  present  reigning  house  began  its 
most  recent  career  of  conquest,  its  first  victim 
was  the  kingdom  of  Denmark,  from  which  it 
took  Schleswig-Holstein.  In  order  to  make  a 
certain  concession  to  the  good  opinion  of  the 
world,  which  they  were  still  small  enough  to 
desire,  they  made  a  treaty  with  Denmark 
by  which  at  some  time  within  ten  years  after 
the  conclusion  of  the  war  the  people  of  the  con- 
quered territories  were  to  vote  as  to  whether  they 
desired  to  be  detached  from  Denmark  and  at- 
tached to  Prussia.  When  the  ten  years  were 
nearly  over  and  there  had  been  no  vote,  certain 
delegates  came  to  see  the  Iron  Chancellor  about 
the  right  to  vote  on  the  question,  reminding  him 
of  the  provisions  of  that  treaty.  He  got  out  the 
treaty,  tore  it  into  scraps  and  handed  it  to  them, 
saying :  "That  is  my  answer."  After  the  close  of 
the  war  between  Prussia  and  Austria  and  just  be- 
fore the  Franco-Prussian  war,  the  then  King  of 
Prussia  planned  that  certain  territory  should  be 
violently  detached  from  Austria  and  annexed  to 
Prussia.  When  remonstrated  with  concerning 
this  decree  the  King  said,  "All  my  ancestors  have 
added  to  their  dominions  by  conquest,  and  I  must 
add  to  mine  by  conquest." 

Bismarck,  for  reasons  which  he  explained,  op- 
posed this  plan — not  because  it  was  not  honest, 
but  because  he  did  not  think  it  was  wise ;  and  so 
[176] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

at  that  particular  moment  nothing  was  done. 
When  the  Franco-Prussian  war  came  and  the 
Prussian  army  swarmed  down  into  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  the  same  principle  of  warfare  prevailed, 
without  the  slightest  observance  of  the  laws  of 
humanity.  The  German  army  surrounded  Stras- 
burg  and  turned  their  guns,  not  on  the  forts,  but 
on  the  spires  of  the  cathedral.  The  first  victims 
were  some  school  children,  who  were  studying 
their  lessons  in  a  school  building  in  the  quietest 
part  of  the  city,  which  was  struck  by  the  heaviest 
artillery  fires. 

Now,  that  was  not  because  the  German  people 
are  cruel  by  nature.  I  must  relate  to  you  a  story 
which  was  told  me  by  a  man  who  was  in  Belgium 
when  the  Germans  invaded  that  country.  I  do 
not,  of  course,  know  that  the  story  is  true.  He 
said  he  met  a  German  soldier  who  carried  in  his 
hand  a  bird-cage,  in  which  he  had  a  live  canary, 
and  this  soldier  told  him  of  the  slaughter  of  hun- 
dreds of  women  and  children  in  the  invaded  town, 
of  burned  homes  and  bombarded  churches,  but 
seemed  to  imagine  his  rescue  of  the  canary  sig- 
nified his  humanity.  Now,  it  was  a  humane  sen- 
timent which  made  him  rescue  the  bird,  but  it  was 
the  following  of  a  hellish  principle  which  made 
the  German  regard  as  justifiable  the  burning  of 
houses,  of  religious  institutions,  and  the  slaught- 
ering of  women  and  children  for  the  purpose  of 
terrifying  the  inhabitants  of  the  city.  Therefore, 
it  is  not  that  a  German  citizen  is  not  a  good  man, 
[177] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

but  from  the  time  of  that  Frederick,  who  was 
called  Great,  down  to  now,  a  misguided  and  mis- 
begotten philosophy,  that  might  is  right,  that  the 
leadership  of  the  imperial  Hohenzollern  is 
righteous,  has  permeated  and  poisoned  the 
thought  of  the  German  nation. 

And  so,  when  this  war  broke  out,  almost  the 
first  movements  of  Germany  were  true  to  form. 
They  were  what  any  informed  student  of  history 
would  have  had  reason  to  expect.  She  brought 
her  ships  off  the  coast  of  England,  not  by  its 
forts,  where  its  ships  of  war  were,  but  along  its 
undefended  coast,  its  peaceful  seaside  villages,  its 
little  summer  resorts.  They  stood  fourteen  or 
fifteen  miles  out  to  sea  and  under  cover  of  dark- 
ness bombarded  sleeping  towns,  killing  defense- 
less women  and  children.  When  the  great  Zep- 
pelin raids  began  to  come  over  England  there  was 
no  attempt  made  to  attack  fortified  places.  Their 
whole  object  was  to  use  frightfulness  as  a  means 
of  driving  the  people  of  England  into  submission. 

Now,  one  of  the  greatest  surprises  to  the  Ger- 
man government,  but  which  doesn't  surprise  any 
other  people  in  the  world,  is  this — that  you  can't 
scare  Englishmen  into  subjection  by  killing 
babies.  Nobody  knows  what  is  in  store  for  us  in 
this  war.  We  are  in  it  until  we  win  it.  It  is  just 
as  well  to  have  some  understanding  at  the  begin- 
ning and  Germany  should  learn  now  that  if,  with 
the  help  of  the  devil,  she  is  able  to  find  some  way 
to  cross  the  three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  that 
[178] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

separate  us  and  to  make  a  secret  and  stealthy 
warfare  upon  the  women  and  babies  of  this  coun- 
try, she  will  not  scare  our  men  either. 

The  same  policies  were  pursued  with  the  sub- 
marines. We  built  some  submarines  in  this 
country.  I  think  we  built  the  first — I  am  not 
sure  of  that — but  we  built  them  as  implements  of 
war,  to  attack  warships.  Nobody  ever  dreamed 
of  such  use  as  they  have  been  put  to.  But  when 
this  war  had  been  going  on  a  while  Germany  be- 
gan to  use  them  against  undefended  merchant- 
men, and  while  she  was  proclaiming  that  one  of 
her  objects  in  this  war  was  freedom  of  the  seas, 
she  was  really  trying  to  rid  the  seas  of  commerce. 
She  attacked  that  kind  of  commerce  which,  under 
every  doctrine  and  canon  of  international  law, 
should  have  been  immune  from  attack.  The  sub- 
marine became  a  weapon  of  assassination.  What 
is  an  assassin?  He  is  a  man  who's  afraid  to 
fight;  a  man  who  will  not  take  the  risks  of  a  test; 
a  man  who  will  not  come  into  the  open,  but  who 
selects  a  dark  night  when  you  are  going  to  a  place 
where  you  expect,  where  you  have  every  right  to 
expect,  to  be  peaceful  and  saie;  who  puts  a 
mask  over  his  face  and,  stealing  up  behind,  stabs 
you  in  the  back.  Does  not  every  bit  of  that  defi- 
nition apply  to  the  method  by  which  Germany 
undertook  to  rid  the  seas  of  neutral  vessels? 

Germany  began  to  use  her  submarines  against 
peaceful  commerce  with  an  idea  of  driving  a 
strong  competitor,  although  an  honorable  com- 
[179] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

petitor,  from  the  seas.  She  used  this  weapon 
upon  the  commerce  of  a  peaceful  nation,  a  nation 
with  which  she  had  no  quarrel;  a  nation  which 
had  welcomed  her  children  and  made  them  her 
citizens ;  a  nation  which  had  opened  her  wonder- 
ful opportunities  for  education,  peace  and  happi- 
ness to  the  children  of  Germany. 

America  has  been  a  generous  and  friendly  rival 
for  the  industry  and  commerce  of  the  world — a 
legitimate  ambition,  in  which  she  struck  great 
and  ringing  blows — but  a  country  which,  so  far 
as  Germany  was  concerned,  never  had  action  or 
thought  of  hostility,  yet  Germany  unleashed  these 
things,  and  sent  them  out  to  destroy  our  com- 
merce. 

She  sank  the  Lusitania — not  our  vessel  but 
partly  filled  with  our  people.  I  saw  a  picture 
shortly  after  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  It 
was  the  picture  of  the  wife  of  an  American  citi- 
zen and  her  family  which  had  been  lost  on  that 
ship.  I  suppose  there  wrere  many  other  like  cases, 
but  this  particular  picture  somehow  has  burned 
itself  into  my  memory.  I  have  forgotten  her 
name — I  wish  I  could  forget  her  history — but  she 
was  a  beautiful  woman,  simply  dressed;  by  her 
side  were  two  fine  boys  and  two  little  girls  and 
in  her  lap  a  baby,  smiling.  All  the  affection  of 
that  family  was  centered  in  that  baby  but  the 
legend  under  that  picture  was  that  all  of  them — 
mother,  sons,  daughters  and  baby — were  victims 
in  the  Lusitania!  They  were  not  your  babies, 
[180] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

thank  God!  not  mine,  thank  God!  but  American 
babies  and  an  American  mother.  Now  some- 
where at  the  bottom  of  the  deep,  they  have  an  un- 
known, unmarked  grave  because  they  took  pas- 
sage on  the  Lusitania,  a  vessel  protected  by  every 
canon  of  international  law  against  that  sort  of 
attack  or  any  sort  of  attack  that  did  not  give  the 
people  a  chance  to  escape. 

I  know  how  the  Channel  (now  the  grave  of  so 
many  ships)  looks  by  night.  I  have  been  to  Eng- 
land many  times  before  the  war.  I  have  seen 
those  waves  when  the  moon  was  shining  on  them 
and  I  have  thought  "surely  this  is  the  golden  path 
that  leads  to  the  Favored  Isles."  I  have  seen  the 
moon  shining  down  on  the  chalk  cliffs,  and  have 
thought  the  foam-flecked  waves  a  wonderful 
sight.  But  when  I  think  of  those  chalk  cliffs 
and  those  moonlit  waves  now,  typifying  for  me 
the  English  Channel  through  its  length  from 
Ireland  to  Holland,  I  can  see  only  the  white 
shrouds  of  that  woman  and  those  lovely  children, 
of  countless  women  and  children,  who  went  down 
with  the  Lusitania  that  night,  with  the  sea  for 
their  grave  and  the  white  cliffs  for  their  monu- 
ment. 

After  that  sinking  the  United  States  served  no- 
tice on  Germany  that  she  was  violating  the  laws 
of  nations;  that  she  was  imperiling  our  rights  to 
be  upon  the  high  seas;  and  the  German  govern- 
ment half-heartedly  disclaimed  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania  and  gave  a  solemn  promise  that  she 
[181] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

would  not  make  an  attack  upon  neutral  commerce 
except  in  accordance  with  recognized  rights  and 
with  opportunity  for  safe  escape  by  the  people  on 
board.  For  some  months  our  people  said  "Amer- 
ica has  won  a  diplomatic  victory,"  and  we  said 
of  our  great  President  "How  splendid  his  quiet 
spirit  and  his  patient  waiting !" 

Then  some  more  ships  were  sunk  in  the  same 
way  and  the  German  government  served  notice  on 
us  and  sent  us  a  map,  marking  out  certain  portions 
of  the  high  seas  which  we  might  travel;  certain 
very  indefinite  lines,  certain  unused,  tortuous 
channels,  long  routes,  which  we  might  use  with 
safety,  provided  we  painted  our  ships  in  a  pre- 
scribed fashion  and  did  not  send  more  than  two 
a  week.  Then  this  extraordinary  thing  took 
place.  The  German  Chancellor,  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  a  responsible  official  that  there  is  in 
that  irresponsible  country — he  is  responsible  to 
the  Emperor,  and  the  Emperor  is  not  responsible 
to  anybody — the  Chancellor  rose  in  the  Reichstag 
and  said  he  had  opposed  unlimited  submarine 
warfare  when  it  had  been  first  suggested,  not  be- 
cause he  was  too  good,  not  because  it  was  wrong, 
but  because  he  did  not  think  that  they  had  sub- 
marines enough  to  carry  it  out.  And  he  said, 
"Now  that  we  have  built  more  submarines  I  am 
in  favor  of  it."  In  other  words,  a  miserable 
tricky  sort  of  diplomacy  was  all  there  was  to  his 
former  promises.  I  am  not  sorry  he  imposed 
upon  us.  I  am  glad  we  had  enough  faith  left  in 
[182] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

the  honor  of  nations  to  believe  his  falsehoods. 

We  had  a  choice  then;  by  that  time  the  game' 
was  perfectly  clear.  It  was  the  intention  of  the 
Hohenzollern  family  to  throw  a  shadow  across 
Europe,  beginning  at  the  North  Sea  and  extend- 
ing to  the  middle  of  Asia  as  a  start.  Their  in- 
tention to  destroy  France  was  clear ;  their  purpose 
to  destroy  England  was  clear  and  the  German 
Emperor  did  not  hesitate  to  say  to  certain  Ameri- 
cans, prominent  Americans,  "When  I  am  through 
with  the  rest  of  these  fellows,  America  had  better 
look  out."  So,  we  had  a  choice  to  make.  We 
could  either  cower  and  crawl  to  the  feet  of  the 
Hohenzollerns  and  say,  "O  Mightiness,  your 
frightfulness  has  terrified  me!  Your  power  is 
too  powerful !  I  submit  and  become  your  subject 
State.  I  accept  your  form  of  Kultur," — or  we 
could  fight.  We  chose  to  fight. 

Sometimes  I  hear  men  say  that  there  were  peo- 
ple— nobody  ever  told  me  that  he  himself  believed 
it — but  I  have  heard  men  say  that  they  believed 
that  there  were  people  who  believed  that  we  were 
fighting  this  war  to  help  somebody  else,  England 
or  France.  Suppose  we  were.  We  are  not ;  but 
suppose  we  were.  I  do  not  know  how  it  is  with 
you,  but  I  have  a  limitless  admiration  for  the 
British  and  French  people.  I  am  not  very  sure 
that  I  would  not  be  perfectly  willing  to  fight  for 
them  and  them  only.  But  what  America  is  actu- 
ally fighting  for  is  not  England  or  France;  we 
[183] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

are  fighting  for  what  they  are  fighting  for,  and 
that  is  liberty. 

So  far  as  the  United  States  is  concerned,  we  are 
exceedingly  fortunate  in  this  war  that  we  are  not 
the  only  people  in  the  world  who  love  liberty.  If 
the  Hohenzollern  family  had  made  up  its  mind  to 
change  the  order  of  its  conquests  and  to  take  us 
first  and  to  finish  up  the  rest  when  they  had 
finished  us — well,  our  contest  would  have  been  no 
different  in  the  end,  but  very  different  in  the 
middle. 

And  so,  my  fellow  citizens  of  Richmond,  our 
country  is  in  this  war  because  of  the  unfathom- 
able hostility  between  autocracy  and  democracy; 
because  of  the  inevitable  conflict  between  irre- 
sponsible and  immoral  government  and  responsi- 
ble and  moral  government ;  and  because  when  our 
fathers  left  us  this  land  of  liberty,  they  did  not 
mean  that  the  seed  should  run  out  with  you  and 
me,  but  they  meant  that  our  children  and  our  chil- 
dren's children  should  inherit  the  estate. 

Now,  there  are  a  few  people  in  this  country  who 
are  said  to  be  doubtful ;  there  are  larger  numbers, 
I  am  told,  who  are  indifferent;  but  the  real  state 
of  mind  of  this  country  is  one  of  patriotism  and 
unanimity  and  I  know  it  by  every  token  by  which 
man  may  judge.  Not  very  long  ago  a  colonel 
came  into  my  office  and  said,  "Mr.  Secretary,  I 
am  obliged  to  come  and  see  you.  I  simply  had  to 
come  and  tell  you  what  I  have  seen.  I  have  just 
come  from  the  State  of  Washington  with  a  train 
[184] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

full  of  soldiers  and  our  whole  journey  was  one 
triumphal  progress.  At  every  stop  the  train  made, 
the  people  flocked  to  welcome  us,  to  cheer  us, 
bringing  bands  to  play  for  us.  And  so  we  came 
from  the  other  end  of  the  country,  from  the  far 
Pacific  to  the  Atlantic." 

But  sometimes  evidences  of  enthusiasm  like 
this  may  be  thought  temporary.  I  have  sat  in 
Washington  now  since  the  war  began,  day  by  day, 
night  by  night,  month  by  month.  A  large  part  of 
my  task  is  to  receive  letters  and  persons,  present- 
ing this  message  and  this  thought:  "Here  I  am, 
here  is  my  bank,  here  is  my  factory;  here  is  my 
farm ;  here  are  my  resources,  here  is  everything  I 
have.  How  can  the  Government  use  them  and 
me  best  in  this  emergency  ?"  And  that  has  come 
from  every  part  of  the  country.  There  was  a 
great  howl  when  the  selective  draft  went  into 
effect.  Men  came  into  my  office  and  said,  "The 
streets  of  this  country  will  run  with  blood  on  the 
day  of  the  draft."  But  they  did  not.  Nowhere 
were  there  evidences  that  the  youth  of  the  country 
meant  to  do  anything  but  prove  themselves  law- 
abiding  citizens.  The  selective  draft  is  the  right 
thing.  It  is  the  modern  thing.  The  old-fash- 
ioned mode  of  warfare  called  for  old-fashioned 
means  of  enlistment ;  but  this  is  a  new-fashioned 
warfare  and  we  must  use  modern  means.  We 
must  do  that  thing  which  most  speedily  and  ef- 
ficiently mobilizes  the  forces  of  the  country,  and 
all  the  forces. 

[185] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

The  trouble  is  that  we  have  been  thinking  in 
terms  of  ounces  and  pounds,  pints  and  quarts, 
dollars  and  cents.  And  so  when  we  came  to  make 
an  army  the  first  impulse  was  to  make  it  along 
old  lines,  forgetting  that  we  were  not  fighting  an 
old  kind  of  warfare,  but  a  new  warfare.  The  se- 
lective draft  has  itself  killed  most  of  the  opposi- 
tion that  was  first  evinced  toward  it.  It  is  the  best 
mode  of  gathering  the  necessary  men,  the  fit  men, 
and  the  mode  that  imposes  the  least  burden  on  all 
the  people  and  all  the  States.  The  people  see  that 
now.  We  were  told  that  the  people  would  not 
see  it  because  the  people  were  not  logical ;  but  the 
people  are  logical  and  the  people  do  see  that  the 
selective  service  is  the  logical  service. 

The  reason  some  people  did  not  like  the  idea  at 
first  was  because  they  feared  it  might  be  unfair 
and  unequal;  but  when  it  was  discovered  that 
Congress  intended  an  accurate  and  just  operation 
of  the  law  and  that  it  should  work  to  the  univer- 
sal good  of  the  whole  people,  we  saw  a  different 
spirit  and  it  has  been  accepted  as  the  correct 
measure. 

When  we  began  to  assemble  our  Army,  how 
wonderful  our  people  showed  themselves!  For 
the  last  thirty  or  forty  years  we  have  been  grow- 
ing in  grace  in  the  manner  of  our  civilization,  and 
the  democracy  of  our  institutions.  We  have 
been  building  playgrounds,  public  parks,  and 
other  institutions  for  the  people  of  the  cities  and 
have  been  striving  in  every  way  to  enrich  the  com- 
[186] 


HONOR  AMONG  NATIONS 

mon  life  of  America,  and  so  when  the  time  came 
to  build  an  army  there  was  a  demand  that  we 
build  a  civilized  army.  Now  in  these  great  army 
camps  we  are  gathering  the  manhood  of  our  coun- 
try. We  are  not  only  providing  for  them  modern 
camps,  furnishing  them  warm  clothing,  good 
food,  and  civilized  and  legitimate  instruments  of 
war,  but  the  camps  are  placing  every  facility  of 
civilization  at  the  disposal  of  the  men  in  training 
and  what  has  actually  been  done  proves  that  the 
smokestacks  and  the  church  steeples  are  blending 
their  services  for  the  good  of  our  Army. 

I  have  already  spoken  much  longer  than  I  in- 
tended. I  began  with  the  reflection  that  it  was 
well  for  a  nation,  in  the  midst  of  a  great  war,  if 
it  could  return  from  an  examination  of  its  con- 
science with  a  smile.  It  is  so  with  the  United 
States.  Our  ancestors  left  us  a  wonderful  in- 
heritance. To  them  it  seemed  such  an  inherit- 
ance as  would  always  be  safe,  if  we  restrained 
our  activities  between  two  oceans.  Under  the 
influence  of  time,  this  inheritance  has  indoctri- 
nated the  world  and  democracy  is  on  the  rising 
tide  everywhere. 

It  is  well  with  us  because  our  cause  being  just, 
our  resources  inexhaustible,  our  courage  unfath- 
omable, our  civilization  not  external,  but  essen- 
tial,— because  all  these  things  are  true,  it  is  well 
with  us  in  this  pivotal  moment  in  the  history  of 
the  human  race  that  we  are  sending  our  Army 
[187] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

over  to  be  knightly  victors  on  the  other  side,  and 
that  we  are  joining  the  forces  of  the  British  and 
French  in  the  greatest  contest  that  ever  engaged 
the  energies  of  man. 


[188] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

Off  in  the  far-flung  corners  of  the  globe  the  same 
sort  of  progress  is  being  made;  lately  has  come  the  ro- 
mantic and  poetic  news  that  Jerusalem  is  in  the  hands 
of  Allenby,  and  the  children  of  civilization  that  sprang 
from  that  country  are  now  in  possession  of  their  holy 
places  and  can  walk  untroubled  by  Saracen  and  Moham- 
medan as  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  wanted  to  walk  in  what 
was  the  promised  land  in  years  gone  by. 

NEW  YORK  SOUTHERN  SOCIETY, 
DECEMBER  12,  1917. 

I  THINK  there  has  been  no  time  in  the  history 
of  this  Society  when  I  would  more  esteem  the 
privilege  and  pleasure  of  addressing  it  than  now. 
The  year  1917  is  writing  a  new  date  line  in  our 
history.  It  will  take  none  of  the  glory  from  any 
of  our  memories,  it  will  leave  us  as  a  priceless  in- 
heritance the  great  traditions  of  our  race,  out  of 
which  our  institutions  and  our  liberties  have  been 
fabricated ;  but  from  this  year  many  things  which 
are  separated  in  a  sense  will  be  all  written  under  a 
new  date,  and  the  supremacy  of  common  sacrifices 
in  a  common  cause  will  make  us  more  really  a 
united  people,  more  really  a  nation,  than  we  have 
ever  been  in  our  entire  history. 

People  love  one  another,  people  understand  one 
another  better  from  having  suffered  together  in 
[189] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

the  same  cause.  I  remember  a  story  that  used  to 
impress  my  young  imagination,  of  Dr.  Kane,  the 
great  Arctic  explorer.  He  was  walking  down  a 
street  of  London  late  in  his  life,  and,  coming  up 
the  street  in  the  other  direction,  he  met  a  man 
whom  he  had  not  seen  for  many  years,  but  who 
had  shared  with  him  the  hardships  of  one  of  those 
long,  dark  winters  in  the  Arctic.  Utterly 
changed  the  two  men  were,  by  age  and  years,  and 
yet  they  stopped,  there  was  a  flash  of  recognition, 
and  then,  without  a  word,  they  rushed  into  one 
another's  arms,  and  at  the  end  of  a  long  em- 
brace one  of  them  said,  "Oh,  it  was  so  dark 
there  for  so  long!"  The  memory  of  their  com- 
mon suffering,  of  their  common  enthusiasm,  in- 
domitable courage  in  the  pursuit  of  a  great  idea, 
of  their  association  in  a  heroic  enterprise,  made  a 
bond  which  neither  years  nor  intervening  inter- 
ests could  eradicate  nor  diminish. 

And  so,  after  1917  the  North  and  the  South, 
the  East  and  the  West,  peoples  of  all  extractions 
and  of  all  lineages  and  ancestries,  will  have  a 
new  feeling  when  they  pronounce  themselves 
Americans.  The  family  of  the  nation  has  be- 
come continental.  Many  of  these  distinctions 
which  once  troubled  us  will  be  absorbed  in  the 
new  glory  of  citizenship  in  the  new  nation. 

And  this  will  be  especially  true  because  of  the 
heroic  character  and  the  idealism  of  this  enter- 
prise. Every  now  and  then  somebody  tells  me 
that  he  has  heard  somebody  say  that  America  is 
[190] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

fighting  somebody's  else  war,  and  my  instant  re- 
flection is,  well,  suppose  that  were  true?  Is  it 
not  more  heroic  to  save  somebody's  else  life  than 
your  own?  To  whom  do  we  build  monuments, 
for  whom  do  we  cast  heroes'  medals — for  the  men 
who  save  their  own  lives  or  those  who  save  the 
lives  of  others?  What  is  the  quality  of  heroism 
if  it  be  not  unselfish  self-sacrifice? 

And  yet  it  is  not  necessary,  nay,  it  would  not 
be  true,  to  say  that  this  is  an  unselfish  expedi- 
tion in  that  sense  or  to  that  extent,  for  in  very 
truth  our  nation  is  engaged  in  fighting  its  own 
battles,  its  own  material  battles — if  that  matters, 
but  it  does  not.  It  is  engaged  in  fighting  its  own 
spiritual  battle ;  it  is  engaged  in  saving  the  soul  of 
democracy. 

Truly  all  wars  which  have  been  waged  for 
the  prestige  of  kings  or  the  territorial  extension 
of  empires  fail  of  justification.  There  is  a  qual- 
ity in  this  war  which  evokes  a  spiritual  response, 
and  that  will  be  a  new  kind  of  cement  for  the 
making  of  a  stronger  and  more  triumphant  people 
when  it  is  over. 

And  there  is  another  exceedingly  happy  quality 
in  this  war,  that  we  are  not  fighting  alone.  I 
am  not  even  ambitious  that  the  glory  of  the  final 
conquest  should  come  to  us  alone.  I  would  far 
rather  have  the  triumph  of  democracy  the  reward 
of  the  associated  effort  of  democratic  peoples 
everywhere ;  so  that  when  this  war  is  over  neither 
we  nor  they  can  have  any  monopoly  of  that  virtue, 
[191] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

but  will  be  partners  in  its  glory,  and  so  associates 
in  the  further  progress  which  is  to  be  made. 

For  we  must  never  forget,  when  we  speak  of 
democracy,  that  it  is  not  an  accomplishment,  it  is 
not  a  thing  that  has  been  done,  but  it  is  a  prog- 
ress, it  is  a  system  of  growth,  and  though  to-day 
we  might  achieve  what  our  limited  vision  pro- 
claims to  us  as  the  democratic  ideal,  its  quality 
is  such  that  when  we  stand  on  what  now  seems  to 
us  the  highest  peak  in  the  range,  there  will  ever 
be  greater  heights  ahead  to  tempt  and  inspire  us. 

And  so,  when  this  war  is  over,  and  the  crude 
medievalism  of  the  Hohenzollerns  and  the  Haps- 
burgs  is  at  last  confronting  its  fate;  when  this 
contest  is  over  and  the  David  of  democracy 
has  dealt  with  the  Goliath  of  medievalism  and 
autocracy,  there  will  still  be  work  for  David  to  do 
worthy  of  his  best  efforts,  and  in  its  accomplish- 
ment great  benefits  to  the  race  will  still  remain  ta 
be  achieved. 

People  are  sometimes  disposed  to  adopt  a  com- 
plaining tone  about  our  efforts;  not  many,  but 
here  and  there  one.  There  are  two  ways  of  look- 
ing at  this  war  and  our  preparation  for  it.  One 
is  to  look  at  what  we  have  done,  and  one  is  to 
look  at  what  we  have  not  done.  If  we  realize 
that  practically  every  activity  of  the  Government 
associated  in  this  business  has  been  required  in  a 
very  short  space  of  time  to  expand  3,000  per  cent, 
if  we  take  account  of  the  things  that  actually  have 
been  achieved,  not  only  will  we  find  that  we  have 
[192] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

won  the  admiring  comn^ctatTofi 0* --visiTors  from 
the  Old  World,  wh/^'are  familiar  with  what  they 
have  done  and  are  amazed  at  our  progress,  but 
we  will  find  solid  ground  for  pride  in  the  strength, 
capacity  and  greatness  of  our  own  people. 

Now,  I  am  perfectly  aware  that  in  any  great 
enterprise  where  one  starts  in  wishing  to  achieve 
everything,  there  are  things  in  the  first  rush  of 
preparation,  for  which  the  industry  of  the  country 
is  not  yet  adequately  prepared,  things  which  time 
will  right;  and  so  if  you  go  about  with  a  critical 
and  fault-finding  spirit,  you  can  always  find 
enough  to  satisfy  that  sort  of  spirit — it  does  not 
take  much. 

But  think  of  us  as  a  people  who  really  love 
peace,  who  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  have 
devoted  themselves  to  its  ideals  and  its  practices, 
whose  affections  have  been  engaged  with  the  ac- 
complishments of  peace  and  civilization,  who  have 
learned  to  love  justice  and  who  have  embodied  it 
in  their  own  political  and  social  institutions,  who 
have  established  among  themselves  a  generous 
competition  in  industrial  and  scientific  and  com- 
mercial progress,  who  have  spread  abroad  among 
themselves  processes  of  universal  education,  so 
that  almost  year  by  year  the  general  level  of  the 
material  and  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of  their 
people  has  been  visibly  elevated.  If  you  come  to 
recognize  in  us  that  sort  of  people,  devoting  our- 
selves with  an  intense  devotion  to  the  working  out 
of  finer  adjustments  for  human  happiness  and  for 
[193] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 


^ 

the  recognit&ruL&C  Tight*  of  the  individual,  and 
then  see  us  suddenly  summoned  .to.  ,go  back  five 
hundred  years  to  deal  with  a  recrudescence  of 
brute  force,  unilluminated  by  any  sort  of  morality 
or  humanitarian  consideration,  and  then  see  what 
we  have  done  in  that  space  of  time  to  readjust 
ourselves  to  this  odious  and  unlovely  thing  that 
we  are  forced  to  do,  I  think  you  will  agree  not 
only  that  we  have  done  great  things,  but  that  we 
can  be  reassured  about  civilization. 

Civilization  does  not  mean  the  enfeeblement  of 
a  people.  Disinclination  to  fight  does  not  mean 
inability  to  fight.  We  can  with  confidence,  from 
now  on,  pursue  those  processes  which  have  hith- 
erto engaged  us  and  seem  to  promise  so  much, 
always  with  the  assured  conviction  that  education 
does  not  destroy  courage  and  that  a  civilized, 
peace-loving,  God-fearing  nation,  if  it  has  to  pro- 
tect itself  against  brute  aggression,  has  the  ca- 
pacity, the  concentration  of  purpose  necessary; 
nay,  that  in  democratic  institutions  there  is  that 
virtue  which  is  perfectly  sufficient  to  any  contest 
it  may  be  called  upon  to  face. 

I  shall  not  take  your  time  to  recount,  in  thou- 
sands and  millions,  either  of  dollars  or  of  blank- 
ets, what  the  country  has  done.  In  the  first  place 
those  figures  mean  very  little,  and  in  the  second 
place,  I  cannot  remember  them.  But  this  war 
requires  three  things:  It  requires  money,  men 
and  morale. 

The  great  talents  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
[194] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

ury  have  had  a  most  extraordinary  opportunity, 
most  wonderfully  improved,  to  mobilize  the 
finances  of  this  country  back  of  this  war. 

The  Congress  of  the  United  States  was  faced 
with  the  question  of  mobilizing  the  men  of  this 
nation,  and  I  think  the  reception  given  by  the 
country  to  the  solution  they  gave  that  problem 
shows  the  youth  fulness  and  ability  to  learn  of 
the  American  people.  At  the  outset  there  were 
those  who  remembered  when  armies  were  gath- 
ered, such  little  armies  as  we  used  to  have,  by 
a  drum  and  fife  corps,  and  an  orator  here  and 
there,  who  whipped  the  spirit  of  the  community 
into  an  enthusiastic  outbreak,  and  gathered  in  the 
willing  and  took  them  off  to  camp.  Or  some  indi- 
vidual's popularity  was  appealed  to  to  raise  a 
company  or  a  regiment,  and  men  went  more  be- 
cause they  admired  and  loved  a  particular  captain 
than  for  other  reasons. 

But  we  had  observed  what  was  going  on 
abroad,  and  we  saw  that  this  kind  of  war 
meant  the  mobilization  of  the  whole  nation,  and 
that  to  leave  the  volunteer  to  solve  that  problem 
meant  such  a  disorganization  of  the  industrial 
and  commercial  and  social  life  of  the  country  as 
probably  would  result  also  in  a  weakened  army. 
And  so  the  Congress  said,  "We  will  recognize  at 
the  outset  the  universality  of  the  obligation  of 
service  and  proclaim  boldly  that  it  is  for  the  Gov- 
ernment to  decide,  for  the  nation,  acting  as  an 
[195] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

aggregate,  to  decide  where  each  man's  talents  can 
best  be  used." 

So  they  passed  the  law  called  euphemistically 
the  Selective  Service  Law.  And  some  people  said, 
"Isn't  it  a  draft?"  And  I,  speaking  below  my 
breath,  replied,  "Yes."  Somehow  or  other  every 
time  I  mistrust  democracy,  I  get  punished  for  it. 

Finally  the  law  was  passed  and  a  day  was  set 
for  the  registration  of  the  young  men  of  this 
country,  and  in  a  single  day  ten  millions  of  them 
registered.  No  other  country  in  recorded  history 
ever  did  such  a  thing,  and  it  was  done  by  us  so 
easily,  so  simply,  so  naturally,  and  so  completely 
as  a  matter  of  course  that  it  passed  by  without 
adequate  notice  of  its  significance. 

It  was  not  merely  obedience  to  a  law,  it  was 
the  acceptance  of  its  spirit;  and  if  there  be  a 
lingering  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  one  as  to  that 
being  true,  let  him  go  to  Yaphank  or  to  any  other 
of  the  sixteen  cantonments  in  which  the  National 
Army  is  being  assembled,  and  he  will  find  these 
young  men,  just  a  cross-section  of  the  common 
life  of  this  country — college  professors,  college 
students,  merchants,  mechanics,  bankers,  farmers, 
men  with  any  kind  of  occupation  or  none, — all 
of  them  now  filled  with  but  one  thought,  as  it 
comes  to  me  in  Washington  by  round-robins  and 
by  letters  from  friends  and  by  reports  of  ob- 
servers and  inspectors — but  one  thought,  and  that 
is,  "Mr.  Secretary,  how  soon  can  we  go  to 
France?" 

[196] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

In  the  meantime,  the  mobilization  of  the  re- 
sources of  this  country  is  an  equally  inspiring 
chapter  in  this  story.  Even  before  the  United 
States  was  in  the  war  there  were  uneasy  pushings 
forward  of  men  in  industry  and  commerce,  say- 
ing, "Can't  the  Government  find  some  way  to  es- 
tablish relations  of  usefulness  for  us  to  the  Gov- 
ernment?" There  was  a  feeling  in  the  air,  just  as 
there  is  in  the  opera — I  am  borrowing  an  illustra- 
tion from  John  Fiske,  I  think — but  there  was  a 
feeling  in  the  air,  just  as  there  is  in  the  opera, 
when  the  violins  play  a  kind  of  tremolo,  and  one 
begins  to  have  a  sense  that  something  is  going  to 
happen  that  transcends  in  importance  the  other 
things  that  have  been  going  on  upon  the  stage. 

And  so  from  all  over  this  nation  there  began 
to  be  a  reaching  of  hands  of  helpfulness  toward 
Washington,  and  when  finally  the  President  ad- 
dressed the  Congress  and  war  was  declared  and 
the  die  was  cast,  and  we  were  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  Great  Britain  and  France  in  this  struggle, 
Washington  became  almost  an  inextricable  con- 
fusion, men  treading  upon  one  another's  heels 
and  crowding  one  another  away  from  the  depart- 
ment buildings  in  their  impetuous  zeal  to  say, 
"What  can  we  do  and  how  can  we  be  used?" 

And  so  all  over  this  country  there  has  gone  on 
a  gathering  unison  of  spirit,  a  gathering  desire 
for  sacrifice.  Industry  is  diverting  itself  from 
less  important  to  more  important  things.  What 
we  used  to  know  as  capital  and  labor  have  for 
[197] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

the  most  part  forgotten  their  differences,  and  the 
imperial  theme  now  that  guides  every  man's 
thinking  and  every  man's  acting  is  service  to  the 
nation. 

Now,  it  strikes  me  as  rather  an  interesting  re- 
flection that  while  we  are  in  this  war  to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy,  democracy  is  making 
itself  manifest  here  among  us;  for  that  is  democ- 
racy— the  cooperation,  without  distinction  of 
fortune  or  opportunity,  of  all  the  men  of  the  na- 
tion for  the  common  good. 

We  are  recognizing  it,  too,  I  think,  in  our  hu- 
man relations.  I  have  been  traveling  around 
over  the  country  seeing  these  training  camps,  and 
I  find  that  when  ten  or  twenty  or  thirty  thousand 
boys  are  camped  near  a  city,  large  or  small,  the 
city  adopts  them.  There  is  an  instantaneous  and 
widespread  process  of  affectionate  adoption  going 
on,  so  that  men  of  my  time  of  life,  when  they 
walk  along  the  street  and  see  a  man  in  khaki, 
have  an  almost  irresistible  desire  to  say,  "My 
son!" 

How  beautiful  that  is,  and  how  true  it  is !  For 
when,  on  some  moonlight  night,  on  the  fields  of 
France,  some  American  boy's  face  is  upturned, 
some  boy  who  has  made  the  grand  and  final  sac- 
rifice in  this  cause,  no  passerby  nor  no  imagina- 
tion that  reaches  him  will  be  able  to  discern 
whether  he  came  from  a  blacksmith's  forge  or  a 
merchant's  counter  or  a  banker's  counting  room. 
He  will  simply  be  an  American,  and  our  affection 
[198] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

for  him,  our  adoption  of  him,  our  pride  in  him, 
will  be  as  undiscriminating. 

Now  all  of  this,  I  think,  tends  to  afford  some 
consolation.  It  is  one  of  the  by-products  of  this 
war  that  is  going  to  be  of  immense  value  to  man- 
kind when  it  is  over.  I  have  already  adverted  to 
the  association  with  other  nations.  I  suppose 
every  boy,  when  he  is  a  boy  and  thinks  of  Heaven, 
looks  forward  to  communion  with  the  spirits  of 
the  great  departed.  Every  generous  soul  desires 
contact  with  greatness,  and  now  we  are  sending 
over  to  France  unnumbered  thousands  of  choice 
young  Americans  to  associate  with  a  great  peo- 
ple, and  with  men  who  have  responded  to  mag- 
nificent inspirations. 

When  Joffre  was  in  this  country  he  was  in  my 
office  one  day  for  about  an  hour,  and  I  was  deeply 
impressed  with  his  apparent  imperturbable  calm. 
He  spoke  hastily,  as  it  seemed  to  me;  all  French 
seems  hasty  to  me  because  I  don't  understand 
it.  But  he  was  calm,  and  after  he  had  gone 
out  I  asked  one  of  his  staff  officers  who  had 
been  with  him  from  the  beginning  of  the  German 
invasion  of  France  whether  he  was  always  as  un- 
troubled and  calm  as  that,  and  how  he  had  be- 
haved in  the  terribly  disheartening  and  disastrous 
days  before  the  Battle  of  the  Marne.  His  aide 
gave  me  this  picture  of  him :  The  old  Marshal  sat 
in  his  headquarters,  and  day  after  day  dispatches 
came;  every  minute  a  dispatch,  all  of  them  dark 
and  menacing.  They  were  handed  to  him  by  the 
[199] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

young  man  who  told  me  this  story,  announcing 
the  German  advance  here,  and  the  French  re- 
treat there,  and  the  capture  of  this  city,  and  fi- 
nally the  approach  of  the  German  army  to  Paris. 

And  this  Major  told  me  that  as  each  dispatch 
came  in  the  old  Marshal  would  shrug  his  shoul- 
ders and  say,  "Oh,  well — eh,  bien !"  until  finally, 
under  the  accumulation  of  this  intense  anxiety, 
the  last  dispatch  came,  telling  that  the  German 
army  was  in  sight  of  Paris,  their  objective,  the 
heart  of  the  Marshal's  nation.  And  in  an  instant 
his  "Oh,  wells,"  his  "Eh,  biens,"  came  to  an  end. 
When  this  last  dispatch  came  in  he  glanced  at  it 
for  a  moment,  tossed  it  aside,  and  said,  "This  is 
far  enough" ;  picked  up  a  pencil  and  with  his  own 
hand  wrote  the  message  to  the  soldiers  of  France 
which  ended  with  something  like  these  words: 
"The  enemy  must  be  permitted  to  advance  not  one 
step  farther.  The  least  that  France  expects  of 
any  of  her  sons  is  that  he  will  die  where  he 
stands." 

And  that  began  the  Battle  of  the  Marne,  and 
from  that  day  to  this,  France  has  realized  her 
expectation  in  her  children. 

And  right  alongside  of  them  is  that  superb 
British  army,  no  longer  the  despised  little  army, 
the  contemptible  little  army,  but  Kitchener's 
army,  the  army  of  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies, 
gathered  from  over  all  the  world. 

Off  in  the  far-flung  corners  of  the  globe  the 
same  sort  of  progress  is  being  made,  until  only 
[200] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

day  before  yesterday  the  poetic  and  romantic 
news  came  that  Jerusalem  was  in  the  hands  of 
Allenby,  and  the  children  of  the  civilization  that 
sprang  from  thj.t  country  are  now  in  possession 
of  their  holy  places,  and  can  walk  untroubled  by 
Saracen  and  Mohammedan  as  Richard  Cceur  de 
Lion  wanted  to  walk  in  what  was  the  promised 
land  in  years  gone  by. 

It  is  a  wonderful  story,  the  alignment  of  the 
nations  which  can  truly  be  called  civilized,  against 
the  ancient  medievalism  which  survives  in  the 
heart  of  Europe.  The  hope  of  mankind,  so  often 
frustrated,  apparently  is  now  to  be  accomplished. 
It  could  not  be  done  in  Napoleon's  time,  in  spite 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  its  philosophy  and 
its  promise,  because  of  what  Danton  called  "The 
Allied  Kings  of  Europe."  It  could  not  be  done 
in  1848,  because  of  the  Metternichs  and  the  Bis- 
marcks.  It  could  not  be  done  in  1870,  because 
Hapsburg  and  Hohenzollern  were  still  trium- 
phant. But  out  of  the  West,  out  of  this  youngest 
and  latest  and  most  hopeful  of  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  out  of  this  young  giant,  fashioned  from  all 
the  peoples,  who  originated  and  faithfully  prac- 
ticed a  new  philosophy,  messages  of  democracy 
have  gone  over  and  indoctrinated  other  peoples 
in  other  parts  of  the  world. 

Now,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  this  giant  is 

grown,  and  joins  hands  with  other  peoples,  who, 

though  older,  are  yet  the  children  of  his  spirit. 

We  are  partners  to-day  with  great  men  of  great 

[201] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

nations  who  have  borne  for  three  years  heroically 
the  brunt  of  this  struggle.  At  the  end  of  it,  out 
of  the  noise  and  smoke  of  battle,  there  arises  the 
vision  of  a  new  federation  of  nations,  of  a  new- 
fraternity  of  mankind — the  sons  and  daughters 
of  civilization  joining  hands  to  protect  the  sacred 
principles  upon  which  the  freedom  of  mankind 
rests. 

In  and  about  our  training  camps  new  condi- 
tions have  arisen.  All  sorts  of  modern,  advanced 
ideas  with  regard  to  the  amusement  and  enter- 
tainment and  recreation  of  young  men  in  order 
that  they  may  be  virile,  strong,  and  high-minded, 
have  been  adopted,  not  because  of  any  particular 
wisdom  of  any  one  man,  but  because  of  the 
unanimous  judgment  and  demand  of  the  Amer- 
ican people.  And  when  our  army  goes  abroad, 
it  will  be  a  knightly  army,  not  an  army  of  con- 
quest that  expects  to  come  home  with  chariots 
loaded  up  with  material  spoils,  and  prisoners 
chained  to  the  wheels,  but  an  army  that  is  going 
over  to  live  and  die  for  the  fine  fruits  of  a  high 
idealism  and  a  purified  national  morality. 

And  when  we  add  the  righteousness  of  our 
cause  to  the  intensity  and  success  of  our  prepara- 
tion, mobilizing  the  material  and  spiritual  and 
scientific  resources  of  our  great  people,  and  think 
of  the  character  of  our  army,  we  see  but  one  pos- 
sible conclusion  to  this.  Its  first  step  will  be  mili- 
tary victory  on  the  field,  but  its  last  step,  its  great 
fruits,  the  victory  which  will  enter  New  York 
[202] 


THE  EMBATTLED  DEMOCRACY 

Harbor  some  day  written  on  the  shields  of  our 
boys  who  will  bring  it  to  us,  the  victory  that  we 
will  value  most,  will  be  a  vindication  in  the  sight 
of  all  men  everywhere  of  the  virtue  of  freedom, 
the  vigor  of  civilization,  of  true  civilization,  the 
inviolable  righteousness  of  international  engage- 
ments and  agreements — the  fact  that  among  na- 
tions, as  among  men,  the  wages  of  sin  is  death. 

My  fellow-citizens,  we  are  in  a  war  with  all  its 
losses,  material  and  human.  There  may  be  griefs 
in  store  for  us  of  a  personal  kind,  and  we  shall 
bear  them  with  fortitude.  But  for  mankind,  and 
for  us  as  a  nation,  there  is  joy  in  store ;  not  only 
in  the  introduction  of  a  new  and  higher  era  for 
the  advance  and  effort  of  mankind,  not  only  that 
men  and  women  and  children  are  to  have  a  newer 
and  larger  liberty  in  the  life  that  is  to  come,  but 
that  we  Americans,  having  so  greatly  enjoyed 
under  the  favor  of  Providence  these  priceless  pos- 
sessions, have  been  privileged  to  participate  in 
making  them  a  common  asset  for  mankind. 


[203] 


THE  NEW  FREEDOM  AND  THE  NEWER 
DEMOCRACY 

It  won't  do  for  us  to  embrace  the  hollow  figure  in  which 
democracy  was  once  a  tenant  and  say,  "This  is  De- 
mocracy." We  must  have  an  image  to  represent  it  which 
is  suited  to  the  environment  in  which  the  figure  is  to 
play  a  part. 

NATIONAL  AMERICAN  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE  ASSO- 
CIATION, POLI'S  THEATER,  WASHINGTON, 
DECEMBER  14,  1917. 

DOES  it  seem  unnatural  to  you  that  those  of 
us  who  are  especially  charged  with  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  this  great  world  war  and  our  par- 
ticipation in  it  should  be  asking  ourselves  ques- 
tions about  its  ultimate  effect  upon  the  world  ?  In 
the  struggle  we  are  now  facing,  if  the  incalculable 
waste  of  human  life  and  human  effort — if  the 
hopeless  loss  of  life  and  destruction  of  capacity 
were  not  relieved  by  some  hopeful  and  forward- 
looking  promise,  the  burdens  of  this  struggle 
would  be  quite  insupportable  for  the  human  race. 
As  a  consequence,  I  think,  in  those  moments 
when  we  are  free  from  the  burden  and  responsi- 
bility of  an  insistent  and  instant  demand,  most  of 
us  are  seeking  to  penetrate  the  future,  and  see 
what  this  war  means  for  the  betterment  of  the 
race,  at  large,  and  in  the  future.  I  have  often 
[204] 


FREEDOM  AND  DEMOCRACY 

asked  myself,  "What  does  this  war  mean  to  wom- 
en ?"  And  in  asking  that  question,  I  always  put 
the  accent  on  "this"  war;  because  woman's  por- 
tion of  most  wars  is  a  fairly  obvious  thing — it  is 
a  contribution  of  loss,  a  contribution  of  broken 
hearts,  a  contribution  of  sacrifice  and  a  ministry 
of  mercy.  Except  that  her  fight  is  inseparably 
bound  up  with  that  of  the  nation  of  which  she  is 
a  member,  it  ordinarily  has  had  no  larger  sig- 
nificance for  her.  But  when  I  put  the  accent  on 
this  war,  it  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  large  re- 
deeming hopes  of  the  struggle  begins  to  appear, 
because  this  is  certainly  the  first  war  of  its  kind 
which  has  been  waged  for  democracy. 

The  President  the  other  day  made  an  illuminat- 
ing definition  of  democracy  by  first  denying  that 
it  is  a  political  philosophy  and  then,  in  his  next 
breath,  stating  that  it  is  a  rule  of  action.  Now 
the  thing  that  I  want  to  point  out  about  democ- 
racy to-night  is  that  it  is  not  an  accomplished 
thing  to  possess,  but  is  a  process  of  growth.  It 
is  a  series,  an  endless  series  of  advances  and,  ac- 
cepting the  President's  definition  that  democracy 
is  a  rule  of  conduct,  it  is  always  the  rule  which 
adapts  the  conduct  of  the  individual  to  the  best 
purpose  achievable  in  the  environment  in  which 
he  is  placed;  so  that,  constantly,  democracy  and 
the  obligations  of  democracy  and  its  opportuni- 
ties are  extending  and  changing  with  the  environ- 
ment. 

It  has  been  so  long  since  I  have  had  any  oppor- 
[205] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

tunity  to  look  even  at  the  back  of  a  book  of  his- 
tory that  I  hesitate  to  fortify  that  statement  with 
any  historical  illustrations;  and  yet  some  very 
obvious  illustrations  do  occur  even  to  one  who, 
like  myself,  has  had  little  acquaintance  with  his- 
tory more  recent  than  his  college  days.  Democ- 
racy in  ancient  Greece  was  a  rule  by  a  very  small 
and  restricted  privileged  class,  who  among  them- 
selves preserved  some  equality  of  political  right 
and  opportunity,  but  their  rule  was  extended  over 
a  very  large  population  which  was  either  eco- 
nomically and  socially  inferior  or  absolutely  en- 
slaved. 

Democracy  in  Rome  was  not  much  wider  in  its 
distribution  of  political  rights.  The  first  consti- 
tution, which  was  made  under  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, was  a  constitution  with  altogether  illogical 
restrictions  upon  manhood  suffrage.  The  very 
people  who  wrote  the  rights  of  man  as  the  decla- 
ration of  the  principles  upon  which  the  French 
Revolution  was  justified,  wrote  in  the  next  breath, 
in  the  laws  by  which  they  undertook  to  carry  that 
declaration  into  effect,  an  illiberal  system  which 
restricted  the  right  to  vote  and  laid  a  property 
qualification  upon  it. 

And  so,  when  our  own  tentative  democracy,  our 
democracy  of  1776  and  1789,  was  established- 
accepting  the  President's  definition  and  applying 
it — it  was  a  rule  of  conduct  adapted  to  the  en- 
vironment of  1789.  And  when  later  we  come 
to  the  present  year  or  to  recent  years,  it  won't 
[206] 


FREEDOM  AND  DEMOCRACY 

do  for  us  to  embrace  the  hollow  figure  in  which 
democracy  was  once  a  tenant  and  say  "This  is 
DEMOCRACY,"  but  we  must  have  an  image  to  rep- 
resent it  which  is  suited  to  the  environment  in 
which  the  figure  is  to  play  a  part.  We  must  have 
the  democracy  of  1917,  because  the  democracy 
of  1789  is  not  adapted  to  the  environment  of  1917. 

Now  what  are  the  underlying  facts  which  have 
changed?  Institutions  and  governments  grow 
more  complex  as  they  progress,  because  of  the 
necessity  of  their  being  constantly  adapted  to  the 
needs  which  they  are  to  meet.  In  1789  we  were 
largely  a  rural  and  agrarian  population.  The 
family  was  no  less  the  unit  of  society  than  it  is 
now,  but  the  interests  of  the  family  were  very 
much  more  narrowed.  The  intimacies  of  the 
family  in  the  few  interests  they  had  were  very 
much  more  close;  the  process  of  representation 
by  a  single  member  of  a  family  was  not  in  the 
slightest  degree  striking  or  shocking  or  curious 
to  people  of  that  time.  More  lived  within  their 
own  homes.  The  walls  of  the  home  and  the 
church  were  substantially  the  accepted  perimeter 
within  which  their  rights  and  activities  were  all 
contained. 

Then  we  embarked  upon  an  enlargement  of  our 
activity.  Our  own  civilization  became  more  in- 
tense. We  not  only  departed  from  the  stage 
coach  and  the  pack  mule  as  modes  of  transporta- 
tion, and  adopted  the  steam  railroad  and  the 
electric  motor,  but  we  speeded  up  our  intellectual 
[207] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

processes  in  the  same  ratio.  We  speeded  up  edu- 
cation and  scattered  it  widespread  over  the  land. 
We  made  all  of  the  industrial  and  commercial 
processes  of  our  people  very  much  more  intense 
and  by  the  introduction  of  machinery  we  took 
away  from  industry  and  from  commerce  a  very 
great  deal  of  the  highly  specialized  skill  which 
made  it  necessary  for  a  man  to  devote  an  entire 
lifetime  to  the  pursuit  of  a  single  activity  in  order 
to  become  expert  in  it.  At  the  same  time  we  be- 
came a  very  much  more  congested  population, 
and  all  of  these  things  led  to  the  advent  of  women 
in  industry  and  in  commerce,  and  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  large  numbers  of  girls  and  women  into 
spheres  of  activity  which  were  previously  entirely 
restricted  to  men ;  and  as  we  began  to  be  engaged 
in  the  same  work,  there  began  to  be  a  unity  of 
interest,  began  to  be  more  and  more  of  that  in- 
dustrial society  which  has  finally  come  to  be 
recognized  in  the  law.  That  is  what  always  takes 
place.  Government  at  its  best  is  the  surrender 
by  each  individual  of  only  so  much  of  his  indi- 
vidual right  and  liberty  as  must  necessarily  be 
surrendered  for  the  common  good,  which  is 
deemed  higher  than  the  good  of  the  individual. 
We  surrender  these  rights  very  reluctantly.  If 
there  were  but  one  man  in  the  world,  he  would 
have  all  the  rights  there  are — he  would  have  to 
make  no  surrenders.  But  when  we  come  to  two 
men  with  two  rights,  we  find  that  each  must  sur- 
render so  much  of  his  previously  unrestrained  lib- 
[208] 


FREEDOM  AND  DEMOCRACY 

erty  as  is  necessary  to  make  them  get  along 
together  in  the  world  which  they  both  happen  to 
inhabit.  And  if  we  go  from  two  men  to  ten  men, 
and  to  hundreds  of  men  and  to  thousands  and 
millions  of  men,  we  find  a  constant  increase  in 
the  proportion  of  the  previously  unrestrained  in- 
dividual right  which  must  be  surrendered  in  order 
that  common  good  may  come  out  of  it  and  that 
society  may  be  protected. 

So  when  we  come  to  see  society  as  we  have  it 
now,  we  find  ourselves  a  congested  population  of 
men  and  women,  with  a  tremendously  increased 
number  of  common  interests,  each  of  us  being  re- 
quired to  surrender  more  and  more  of  our  previ- 
ously unrestrained  liberty,  and  freedom  of  action, 
in  order  that  the  common  good  may  be  repre- 
sented and  protected. 

Now  the  result  of  that  is  that  in  1789  it  might 
well  have  been  possible  to  have  defined  as  a 
democracy  a  society  in  which  the  family  was  rep- 
resented by  a  single  representative — a  man;  but 
in  1917,  society  cannot  speak  of  itself  as  a  democ- 
racy unless  it  forgets  its  old  environment,  unless 
it  remembers  the  change  that  has  taken  place.  It 
cannot  speak  of  itself  as  a  democracy  unless  all 
the  men  and  women  who  live  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  that  government  and  those  institutions, 
are  recognized  and  represented  in  the  Govern- 
ment. 

And  so  we  speak  of  this  war  as  being  a  war  for 
democracy.  Women  are  making  sacrifices  in 
[209] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

this  war,  just  as  the  men  are  making  sacrifices  in 
it.  The  immense  activities  of  the  organized  and 
unorganized  women  of  America  who  are  con- 
tributing to  the  strength  of  our  nation  as  it  is 
being  expressed  in  this  contest,  are  not  susceptible 
of  being  withdrawn  any  more  than  the  activities 
of  the  men.  I  have  made  no  careful  search  of 
my  own  mind  on  the  subject,  but  I  think  I  am 
prepared  to  say  that,  if  all  the  women  in  America 
were  to  stop  to-night  doing  the  things  that  they 
are  doing,  and  making  the  sacrifices  and  con- 
tributions they  are  making  toward  the  conduct  of 
this  war,  we  would  have  to  withdraw  from  the 
war.  We  would  at  least  have  to  withdraw  until 
we  could  bring  about  the  entire  reorganization  of 
our  social  and  industrial  structure. 

So  that  one  of  the  demonstrations  which  this 
war  is  making,  one  of  the  conclusions  it  is  bring- 
ing home,  is  that  men  and  women  are  essentially 
partners  in  our  industrial  and  commercial  civil- 
ization, in  any  modern  civilization,  and  that  the 
democracy  which  we  are  struggling  to  establish 
— the  only  sort  of  democracy  which  will  satisfy 
anybody's  heart  and  mind  when  we  emerge  from 
this  war,  is  one  which  recognizes  the  rights  of  all 
the  persons  in  that  society. 

Now  that  is  a  dreadfully  unemotional  sort  of 
thing  with  which  to  try  to  satisfy  oneself  in  a 
time  like  this.  It  seems  an  intangible  sort  of  sat- 
isfaction, and  yet  I  wonder  whether  it  is  not  about 
as  enduring  as  any  satisfaction  can  possibly  be. 
[210] 


FREEDOM  AND  DEMOCRACY 

When  this  war  is  over  we  will  write  down  in 
books  that  at  such  and  such  a  time  there  was  a 
battle  fought,  and  a  victory  won,  that  our  adver- 
sary sent  word  to  this,  that  or  the  other  general 
that  he  desired  to  make  peace,  that  they  began  to 
make  parleys  at  that  place,  and  that  finally  treaties 
were  written  which  settled  the  rights  of  nations, 
and  other  things.  They  will  put  flags,  the  flags 
of  our  country,  and  of  France  and  of  Germany, 
of  England  and  Italy  and  Austria,  on  the  page 
that  records  that  great  triumph.  The  philoso- 
phers will  talk  about  the  defeat  of  Autocracy  at 
the  hands  of  Democracy.  There  is  something 
infinitely  romantic  and  poetic  about  that.  I  can- 
not imagine  any  picture  addressing  my  imagina- 
tion with  more  appeal  than  that  of  the  House 
of  Hapsburg  and  the  House  of  Hohenzollern 
coming  out  of  the  night,  coming  out  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  medieval  figures  still,  and  meeting  here  in 
the  Twentieth  Century  the  young,  strong,  in- 
comparable giant  of  the  modern  spirit. 

Poets  will  write  about  this  struggle  and  his- 
torians will  record  it.  Most  of  it  will  be  un- 
doubtedly grouped  around  the  surface  indications 
of  democracy,  the  rights  of  more  people  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  government;  but  I  suspect  that 
the  real  factor  in  this  contest,  the  real  fundamen- 
tal element  which  is  to  go  on  and  fructify  in- 
definitely in  the  future,  will  be  the  demonstration 
of  the  fact  that  democracy  itself  is  an  effect,  is  a 
progress  rather  than  a  state  of  being,  and  that 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

there  will  ever  be  new  heights  to  which  the  human 
spirit  may  climb,  more  and  more  benefits  to  be  se- 
cured for  the  human  race,  larger  and  larger  lib- 
erties and  opportunities,  more  and  more  far- 
reaching  places  within  which  the  human  spirit 
can  perfect  itself. 

This  war  is  the  culmination  of  a  long  history. 
Nobody  can  tell  how  long  ago  it  began  in  the 
making.  There  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  plays — 
I  confess  I  have  forgotten  which  one — in  which 
I  see  the  picture  of  a  general  on  a  field  in  a  tent — 
it  must  have  been  Richard  III — it  was  just  before 
the  battle  that  was  to  decide  his  fate,  and  it  was 
night.  And  as  his  head  sank  over  in  sleep,  while 
he  was  seeking  rest  for  strength  in  the  next  day's 
conflict,  there  came  trooping  by  him  dream  fig- 
ures of  those  whom  he  had  done  to  death.  I 
have  no  such  personal  feeling  about  the  particu- 
lar representative  of  the  Hohenzollern  family 
who  happens  to  be  alive  when  the  family  history 
comes  to  the  breaking  point,  as  to  make  him 
represent  the  king  within  that  tent;  but  Prussia 
is  before  that  tent,  asleep,  and  the  figures 
that  are  trooping  by  are  Silesia  and  Poland  and 
Alsace-Lorraine,  and  all  the  territory  that  Prus- 
sia has  racked  and  stolen  and  taken  away  from 
other  people,  and  all  the  violence  it  has  done 
in  the  world  and  all  the  recognizances  it  has 
failed  to  make  of  the  validity  of  the  simple  cardi- 
nal rules  of  justice  and  truth  in  human  conditions 
as  applying  to  nations.  All  of  these  are  trooping 


FREEDOM  AND  DEMOCRACY 

by  as  dream  figures  in  the  troubled  sleep  of  that 
nation  which  is  now  brought  to  the  day  of  retri- 
bution. And  as  we  look  upon  that  nation 
lying  at  the  door  of  her  tent  and  reviewing  her 
past,  this  war  gives  us  a  new  lesson.  It  teaches 
us  that  some  day  we  may  have  to  sleep  in  front 
of  the  tent;  as  a  nation  there  may  come  a 
critical  hour  in  our  national  life  when  we 
will  be  called  upon  to  review  our  past  and  see 
whether  we  are  worthy  to  live,  whether  or  not  we 
ought  to  give  place  to  something  stronger  and 
more  virile,  and  more  righteous  than  we;  and  if 
the  figures  that  pass  our  tent  door  are  denials  of 
democracy,  are  refusals  to  recognize  our  environ- 
ment; if  they  are  injustices  to  great  groups  of  our 
fellow-citizens ;  if  they  are  arrogations  and  special 
privileges  to  particular  groups  of  men  or  women, 
of  either  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other ;  if  those  are 
the  figures  that  pass  before  the  tent — then  we  may 
be  very  sure  that  the  battle  on  the  morrow  will  go 
to  the  stronger  race.  But  if  the  figures  that  pass 
before  that  tent  door  are  figures  of  a  people  who 
really  do  love  democracy  and  progress,  who  at 
every  step  in  their  national  career  sought  to  read- 
just themselves  to  the  environment  in  which  they 
lived, — if  they  are  figures  representing  recogni- 
tion of  the  rights  of  individuals  to  the  highest 
fine  development  of  which  their  capacities  are  sus- 
ceptible; if  the  figures  that  troop  by  are  justice,  in 
the  adequate  and  fundamental  sense,  and  real 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  others;  then  we  can 
[213] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

face  the  breaking  of  the  morning  and  the  onset  of 
battle,  just  as  we  can  face  it  now  in  the  contest 
that  is  ahead  of  us,  sure  that  it  may  bring  some 
sacrifices — such  is  the  quality  of  blessings  in  this 
world — but  sure  also  that  endurance  and  per- 
petuity must  in  the  very  nature  of  things  and  in 
the  justice  of  nature,  be  awarded  to  those  who 
are  faithful  to  such  ideals. 

So  analyzing  this  war,  we  realize  that  it  is  giv- 
ing us  of  the  Twentieth  Century  an  opportunity 
to  keep  step  with  our  age.  Before  this  war  be- 
gan, Democracy  gave  its  name  to  a  political  party. 
And  as  I  happen  to  be  a  member  of  that  party,  I 
like  to  think  that  party  represents  that  policy ;  but 
Democracy  is  more  than  the  name  of  a  political 
party  now,  and  this  war  is  teaching  us  to  recog- 
nize that,  and  to  see  women's  share  in  it.  They 
have  the  opportunity  to  make  the  sacrifices ;  they 
have  the  opportunity  to  help ;  they,  like  men,  are 
spurred  on  by  its  superb  inspirations.  Like  men 
they  are  discovering  a  new  and  latent  and  unsus- 
pected capacity  in  themselves  for  action  and  as- 
piration. The  nation  itself  is  discovering  latent 
capacities  and  unsuspected  superiorities.  Nations 
are  drawing  closer  together  and  discovering  one 
another's  inherent  nobility.  And  so,  when  this 
war  is  over,  and  we  begin  the  reconstruction  of  a 
shaken  and  shattered  civilization,  after  the  pour- 
ing in  of  oil  and  the  binding  up  of  the  wounds  of 
the  flesh  are  over,  and  we  begin  to  try  to  bind 
[214] 


FREEDOM  AND  DEMOCRACY 

up  the  spiritual  wounds  of  mankind  resulting 
from  this  struggle,  we  will  then  have  become 
aware  almost  unwittingly — we  will  have  become 
aware  of  the  fact  that  the  salvation  of  the  world 
lies  really  in  the  thing  we  have  been  fighting  for. 
This  democracy  that  we  speak  of  and  follow, 
must  not  be  some  traditional  and  historical  thing, 
something  of  official  creed  and  stiff  formalities, 
a  declaration  written  in  lofty  high-sounding 
phrases;  but  what  the  President  calls  it — a  rule 
of  conduct  by  which  each  individual  in  the  State 
(reserving  to  himself  jealously  all  the  freedoms 
and  rights  that  can  be  reserved,  yet  gives  up  all 
that  is  necessary,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  in 
order  that  by  the  common  effort  of  every  one,  the 
common  good  may  be  effected. 

If  I  had  some  subtle  and  instantaneous  way  of 
using  efficiently  all  of  the  good  will  and  willing- 
ness to  help  that  there  is  in  America,  the  world 
could  not  stand  against  her  five  minutes.  Facing 
the  fact  that  it  takes  some  time  to  order  the 
process  by  which  so  much  willingness  and  good 
will  can  be  used — that  is  the  difficult  part  of  this 
situation,  and  yet  that  is  one  of  the  prices  that 
we  pay  for  democracy. 

It  is  perfectly  possible  to  have  an  ordered  and 
regimented  society  in  which  each  person  will  have 
in  his  pocket  a  card  and  upon  that  card  directions 
as  to  how  he  is  to  act  under  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  circumstances,  and  when  a  national 
[215] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

emergency  arises  to  have  the  public  authority  tele- 
graph abroad,  "Everybody  act  according  to  Rule 
13."  It  would  be  possible  to  fix  by  congressional 
enactment  a  particular  breakfast  hour  for  the  hu- 
man race  and  prescribe  their  conduct  for  every 
five  minutes  of  the  rest  of  the  day ;  and  in  certain 
forms  of  government  that  is  a  more  or  less  popu- 
lar amusement. 

But  one  of  the  characteristics  of  democracy 
is  that  it  does  not  proceed  that  way.  It  scatters 
its  people;  it  allows  them  to  go  about  here  and 
there,  seeking  by  individual  inspiration  and  un- 
guided  effort  to  find  the  avenue  of  their  own 
highest  opportunity  and  enjoyment.  All  are 
busy  about  their  own  concerns,  and  then,  when 
the  national  emergency  comes,  there  is  no  Rule 
13.  Everybody  has  to  ask  somebody  else,  "Well, 
what  are  you  going  to  do  ?  What  do  you  think  I 
can  do?"  After  a  while  these  severely  troubled 
waters  do  really  come  to  a  healing  influence,  and 
we  find  that  though  we  seem  to  have  been  going 
in  circles  and  apparently  indulging  in  a  good  deal 
of  futility,  yet  the  thing  we  have  been  really  doing 
is  consulting  about  the  mode  of  gathering  the  ag- 
gregate strength  of  the  nation  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  our  high-minded  purposes.  Men  are 
doing  it  just  as  women  are  doing  it.  The  or- 
ganizations of  women  in  this  country  have  been 
tremendously  effective — they  are  growing  daily 
more  effective.  Throughout  American  life  there 
is  developing  in  industry,  in  commerce,  in  finance, 
[216] 


FREEDOM  AND  DEMOCRACY 

among  men  and  among  women,  in  the  philosophy 
of  this  conflict,  in  the  morality  of  this  conflict,  in 
the  hope  of  this  conflict — there  is  developing  a 
perfectly  well-defined  unity  of  fellow  feeling,  and 
the  consequence  is  that  when  this  war  is  over,  we 
shall  be  more  a  nation  in  the  best  sense  of  that 
word  than  we  have  ever  been  before. 

Many  of  the  old  things  that  belong  to  the  old 
order  will  have  passed  away  with  that  order. 
The  new  date  line  of  this  central  and  pivotal 
event  in  the  history  of  the  human  race  will  have 
made  memories  of  a  lot  of  things  which  have  been 
prejudices  heretofore,  and  we  shall  start  out  with 
one  of  the  great  fruits  of  this  war, — a  new  knowl- 
edge of  the  progressive  character  of  democracy 
and  a  new  faith  in  the  capacity  of  men  and  women 
to  achieve  the  great  promise  which  world  democ- 
racy holds  for  the  race. 


[217] 


THRICE-ARMED  AMERICA 

The  Army  is  merely  the  point  of  the  sword;  the 
handle,  and  the  hand  that  wields  the  handle  and  the 
body  that  controls  that  hand,  and  the  subsistence  of  that 
body,  are  all  just  as  vitally  indispensable  to  the  effective 
use  of  that  weapon  as  the  point  itself. 

CHAUTAUQUA  REPRESENTATIVES,  WASHINGTON, 

JANUARY  2,  1918. 

HAD  I  a  message  to  bear  to  the  American 
people,  it  would  be  one  of  pride  and  en- 
couragement at  the  splendid  mobilization  of  the 
national  power  which  has  actually  taken  place  in 
America.  I  think  nothing  has  ever  gone  on  in 
the  world  like  the  thing  which  has  gone  on  in  this 
country  since  we  entered  the  European  War. 
Diverting  our  industries  from  their  peace-time 
occupation,  turning  our  attention  to  the  great 
task  and  the  great  opportunity  which  has  been 
opened  up  to  us,  there  has  arisen  among  our  peo- 
ple a  unanimity  of  spirit  and  a  common  willing- 
ness to  sacrifice ;  a  determination  to  see  this  great 
job  through,  which  has  simplified  the  task  of 
those  who  have  been  more  or  less  at  the  center 
and  the  direction  of  things,  and  has  proved  to 
us  this  great  truth  that  it  is  not  necessary  for 
[218] 


THRICE-ARMED  AMERICA 

people  to  doubt  Democracy;  that  whenever 
Democracy  has  an  emergency  to  meet,  it  has  the 
inherent  power  to  rise  to  that  emergency  and  to 
exert  itself  in  ways  that  are  adequate  to  any 
attack  which  can  be  made  upon  it. 

The  wholesome  and  happy  feeling  I  derive 
from  that  is  this :  it  gives  us  assurance  to  go  on 
building  America  as  we  were  building  it — build- 
ing it  as  a  democracy,  putting  the  emphasis  on 
liberty  and  freedom.  We  are  now  assured  that 
in  a  country  organized  in  this  way,  with  love  of 
freedom  as  its  basic  spirit,  there  is  no  weakening, 
there  is  no  enfeeblement  of  the  coordinative 
powers  of  the  people.  When  the  emergency 
comes,  the  power  is  there  and  it  lends  itself  readily 
to  coordination  and  to  expression  and  to  effec- 
tive use. 

Nothing  is  more  valuable  for  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  I  think,  than  that  they  should 
have  just  grounds,  as  they  have  just  grounds,  for 
retaining  their  belief  in  the  validity  as  well  as  in 
the  beauty  of  democratic  institutions.  And  our 
people  are  entitled  to  have  that  assurance  because 
democratic  though  we  are,  we  have  effectively  co- 
ordinated the  strength  of  the  nation.  We  have 
coordinated  its  financial  strength,  its  industrial 
strength,  its  man  power,  and  its  moral  strength, 
and  dedicated  them  to  a  great  heroic  task  in  a  way 
that  no  other  country  in  history  has  done. 

I  hope  that  you  may  bring  the  conviction  to 
[219] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

your  audiences  that  every  man  in  America  is 
interested  in  this  war;  that  it  is  not  the  war  of 
the  people  in  Washington;  it  is  not  the  war  of 
the  people  in  the  army, — it  is  the  war  of  every 
man  in  America,  and  the  things  which  we 
deem  true  and  beautiful  in  civilization,  and  which 
we  are  seeking  to  save  by  this  great  enterprise 
cannot  be  saved  by  the  army  alone,  but  they  are 
to  be  saved  by  every  man,  woman  and  child  old 
enough  to  think  and  willing  to  do  his  share. 

The  army  is  merely  the  point  of  the  sword. 
It  is  simply  the  striking  point  of  the  national 
strength ;  but  the  handle  and  the  hand  that  wields 
the  handle,  and  the  body  that  controls  that  hand 
and  the  subsistence  of  that  body  are  all  just  as 
vital  and  indispensable  to  the  effective  use  of  that 
weapon  as  the  point  itself. 

It  is  the  heightened  sense  of  individual  respon- 
sibility and  individual  participation  in  this  thing 
— it  is  the  dignity  of  the  individual  in  the  midst 
of  this  vast  enterprise  that  I  would  like  to  have 
you  bring  to  your  audiences  so  that  they  can 
actually  feel  and  have  a  realizing  sense  of  it,  be- 
cause if  every  American  who  looks  to  his  coun- 
try's interest  in  this  hour,  can  be  made  to  feel  that 
intimate  sense  of  personal  relationship  to  it;  that 
he  is  one  with  it;  that  his  strength  is  being  felt 
in  the  push ;  that  his  spiritual  contribution  is  on 
the  forward  moving  side,  I  am  quite  sure  that  it 
will  make  the  country  stronger  and  will  give  the 
[220] 


THRICE-ARMED  AMERICA 

people  of  the  country  a  more  wholesome  attitude 
toward  their  own  relation  to  the  government. 

When  this  war  is  over,  wliat  we  want  to  be 
able  to  do  is  to  push  ahead  the  work  of  recon- 
struction. Some  one  is  going  to  be  chosen  to 
reconstruct  the  world.  If  the  governments 
which  come  out  of  this  war  triumphant  are  peo- 
ples which  have  surrendered  personal  liberties, 
subordinated  the  individual  to  the  State,  given  up 
the  right  of  free  speech  and  free  thought;  if 
those  will  be  the  governments  which  will  seem 
most  effective  in  this  war,  their  model  will 
have  to  be  chosen  for  future  reconstruction.  But 
if  the  strongest  force  in  this  war  is  the  vigor 
and  effectiveness  of  the  free  people,  then,  when 
this  war  is  over,  that  model  will  be  chosen  and 
people  all  over  the  world  will  select  that  model  as 
the  one  on  which  to  build  the  reconstruction  of 
the  world. 

In  order  to  have  America  do  its  part  in  the  re- 
construction, we  want  to  have  the  feeling  in  this 
country  when  the  war  is  over  and  the  victory 
won,  that  the  whole  victory  was  not  won  by  the 
soldiers  alone.  On  the  day  when  the  victory  is 
won  and  the  peace  is  accomplished,  I'd  like  to  have 
everybody  in  the  United  States  feel  "I  helped  to 
bring  that  about." 

I'd  like  to  have  you  tell  the  people  of  this  coun- 
try that,  as  Napoleon  said,  in  war  morale,  or 
moral  force,  is  to  brute  force  as  three  to  one.  The 
same  man  said  that  God  was  always  on  the  side  of 
[221] 




FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

the  heaviest  guns.  Yet  Napoleon,  who  to  many 
minds  is  the  typification  of  force,  recognized  the 
value  of  the  spirit  in  war  as  being  three  times  as 
great  as  the  value  of  mere  numerical  strength. 

Now,  if  the  people  of  the  United  States  can 
acquire  a  realization  that  this  great  war  is  the 
greatest  thing  that  we  have  been  privileged  or  will 
be  privileged  to  see  and  help  in,  and  that  the  sac- 
rificial spirit  which  is  necessary  to  sustain  and 
carry  it  to  a  victorious  conclusion  is  one  not  dis- 
colored by  any  sort  of  selfish  advantage — if  they 
can  get  this  realization,  then  not  only  will  we 
win  the  victory  on  the  field,  but  we  will  win  the 
victory  after  the  field  of  battle,  in  the  greater 
opportunities  that  will  come  to  the  race. 

Perhaps  I  can  sum  up.  I'd  like  to  have  you  tell 
the  people,  first,  that  their  country  has  risen  to 
this  emergency;  that  it  is  meeting  its  responsi- 
bility; that  it  is  realizing  its  opportunity;  that 
the  whole  country,  every  part  of  it,  is  knit  to- 
gether in  a  community  of  spirit  and  a  community 
of  effort  which  is  bringing  the  great  power  of 
our  unexhausted  and  perhaps  inexhaustible  re- 
sources to  bear,  for  success. 

Second,  that  this  isn't  one  man's  war,  or  sev- 
eral men's  war,  or  an  army's  war,  but  it  is  a  war 
of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States ;  and 

Third,  that  the  dignity  of  this  task  is  so  great 
that  every  man's  effort  in  it  is  an  honor  to  him, 
and  by  an  appreciation  of  his  participation  in 


THRICE-ARMED  AMERICA 

it,  each  man  makes  himself  ready  not  only  for 
better  contribution  now,  but  for  a  larger  useful- 
ness in  the  reconstructive  work  which  is  to  come 
after  the  war  is  over. 

I  am  very  anxious  to  have  the  German  govern- 
ment grasp  what  the  people  of  America  really 
think  about  this  war,  and  what  we  are  do- 
ing. Referring  to  Napoleon's  maxim,  I  am 
anxious  to  have  our  people  show  the  spirit,  and 
feel  the  identity  of  interest  in  all  this,  which,  by 
those  subtle  processes  of  intercommunication 
apparently  now  established  between  Germany 
and  this  country,  will  finally  get  to  the  govern- 
ing power  of  that  empire,  and  which  when 
translated  to  them  will  be  this:  there  are  no 
sectional  divisions;  there  are  no  partisanships  in 
America;  there  are  no  jealousies;  there  are  no 
personal  ambitions,  but  a  people  of  one  hundred 
million  have  actually  risen  in  a  mass  and  have 
devoted  themselves  to  the  job  of  putting  an  end 
to  the  unholy  aggression  of  Germany  upon  the 
civilized  world. 

If  the  German  Emperor  has  any  sort  of  notion 
that  racial  differences  exist  among  us,  or  that 
religious  differences  may  annoy  us,  or  that  sec- 
tional or  partisan  considerations  may  divide  us, 
let  us  send  him  a  message  that  that  is  not  so. 
Let  us  send  him  word  that  we  are  just  as  much 
one,  although  one  hundred  million  of  us — that 
we  are  just  as  much  one  as  though  we  were  an 
individual,  and  that  if  he  proposes  to  go  on  in 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

his  attitude  toward  civilization  he  will  have  to 
count  on  us  as  a  people  who  are  willing  to  make 
the  necessary  sacrifices  to  bring  the  entire  aggre- 
gate strength  and  power  of  this  nation  to  bear 
against  him.  That  would  be  a  very  good  "three." 
The  army  will  be  the  other  "one."  With  a  moral 
equipment  of  that  kind,  and  the  army,  there  can- 
not be  any  doubt  about  our  success. 


EXPRESSION  VERSUS  SUPPRESSION 

/  am  not  idealist  enough  to  imagine  that  the  time  is  at 
all  near  when  we  can  dispense  with  some  admixture  of 
force  in  the  carrying  out  of  police  regulations,  and  I  am 
heartily  in  accord  with  the  belief  that  there  should  be 
segregation,  isolation  and  quarantine.  We  must  use  the 
power  which  laws  recently  enacted  by  Congress  have 
given  us<  to  diminish  as  far  as  we  can  by  repressive  meas- 
ures opportunities  for  vicious  infections  which  would  en- 
feeble the  Army. 

Yet  I  am  idealist  enough  to  believe  that  we  have  al- 
ready passed  many  mile  stones  since  we  left  the  old  con- 
ditions, and  that  our  progress,  our  substantial  and  tre- 
mendous progress,  is  going  to  be  along  the  line  of  healthy 
and  wholesome  and  stimulating  and  strengthening  sub- 
stitutes as  counterbalances  to  temptation. 

NATIONAL  SOCIAL  HYGIENE  ASSOCIATION, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C,  JANUARY  31,  1918. 

IN  the  office  of  the  Chief  of  Police  of  Cleveland 
there  is  a  picture  about  the  size  of  that  tapes- 
try on  the  wall  facing  me,  done  by  a  man  with  no 
knowledge  of  painting.     He  knew  blue  when  he 
saw    it,    and    he   knew    red   when   he    saw    it, 
and  that  is  about  all  he  did  know  about  col- 
ors.     It    represents    a    little    child    crossing    a 
street,  and  you  can  see  in  her  face,  rudely  as  the 
picture  is  done,  the  anxiety  and  timidity  of  a 
[225] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

little  girl  crossing  a  dangerous  highway.  And 
just  alongside  her  is  a  great  big  humane-looking 
policeman  who  is  helping  her  across.  And  you 
can  see  in  her  face,  also,  the  anxiety  about  to  de- 
part and  her  reliance  upon  the  policeman  as  her 
guardian  and  protector.  The  man  who  painted 
that  picture  did  not  know  very  much  about  art, 
but  he  knew  a  very  great  deal  about  other  things. 
He  made  his  policeman  big  enough  and  strong 
enough  to  express  the  resolute  will  of  society 
against  persistent  wrong-doing.  And  he  made 
him  also  man  enough  to  realize  that  the  fears 
of  a  child  were  worth  providing  against  and  the 
confidence  of  the  child  worth  fostering. 

I  have  thought  of  that  picture  very  often. 
When  I  first  came  into  the  police  court  in  Cleve- 
land it  was  as  sad  a  place  as  I  ever  knew ;  every 
morning,  in  addition  to  the  hardened  offenders, 
the  habitues  of  the  place,  there  was  a  flock  of 
little  children.  I  counted  one  morning  seventeen 
children  under  fifteen  years  of  age,  in  what  was 
known  as  the  "bull  pen"  of  that  prison,  the  city 
jail.  And  those  children, — nine,  ten,  eleven, 
twelve  years  old, — were  huddled  into  the  ante- 
room of  the  courtroom  with  hardened  offenders, 
men  and  women,  and  what  they  heard  from  the 
time  they  were  imprisoned  until  they  were 
brought  into  the  court,  perhaps  to  be  sentenced 
back  to  jail  with  those  same  people,  was  enough 
to  introduce  a  hardening  influence  into  their  lives. 
It  made  of  that  kind  of  effort  at  law  enforce- 
[226] 


EXPRESSION  VERSUS  SUPPRESSION 

ment  merely  a  perpetuation  of  the  evil  effects  of 
accidental  wrong-doing  until  the  children  became 
calloused  into  relentless  habit. 

I  am  talking  about  the  Dark  Ages!  All  that 
happened  so  long  ago  that  I  have  to  search  my 
recollection  to  find  that  such  a  thing  could  be 
true;  and  yet  it  was  true,  not  in  Cleveland  alone 
but  in  cities  throughout  the  United  States  gener- 
ally. But  we  began  to  advance,  and  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  advances  we  made  was  the  in- 
stitution of  the  juvenile  court  system,  by  which 
we  substituted  for  the  indiscriminate  repressive 
method  a  parental  system  of  discipline.  We 
elected  men  to  be  juvenile  judges,  not  because 
they  did  not  know  any  law,  nor  because  they  did, 
but  because  the  community  which  selected  them 
judged  them  to  have  a  sympathetic  comprehen- 
sion of  the  point  of  view  of  children  and  of  the 
processes  which  society  ought  to  adopt  to  rescue 
children  from  their  early  mistakes. 

We  have  no  scales  by  which  we  can  measure 
social  advances,  but  if  there  were  some  subtle 
process  by  which  we  could  measure  in  miles  the 
steps  upward  taken  by  society  when  the  juvenile 
court  was  established  as  a  separate  method  of 
dealing  with  juvenile  offenders,  I  feel  quite  cer- 
tain that  the  mileage  of  that  advance  would  com- 
pare favorably  with  any  other  social  step  we 
have  taken  in  the  last  fifty  years. 

Now  the  next  contribution  to  that  progress  lay 
in  the  idea  of  recreation.  In  1850,  as  I  recall, 
[227] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

there  were  only  two  cities  in  the  United  States 
that  had  public  parks.  To-day  there  is  no  city  in 
the  United  States  which  does  not  have  public 
parks;  there  are  no  small  towns  in  the  United 
States  which  do  not  have  public  parks.  And  our 
first  idea  about  the  park  was  just  outdoor  air  and 
opportunity,  room  for  people  to  spread  out  and 
get  away  from  the  depressing  effects  of  the  con- 
gestion of  modern  civilization.  Our  factory  sys- 
tem had  brought  about  the  congestion  of  indus- 
trial workers  largely  in  city  units  in  order  that 
they  might  be  handy  to  their  places  of  employ- 
ment, and  so  we  had  outgrown  the  village  unit 
idea  with  the  village  common  and  had  brought 
ourselves  into  a  civilization  where  we  lived 
pressed  in  between  hard  brick  walls  and  with 
nothing  to  walk  on  except  stone  streets.  Indeed, 
it  isn't  a  jest,  it  is  a  solemn  and  pathetic  fact  as 
told  in  Life  some  years  ago,  how  some  children 
went  from  New  York  to  get  a  breath  of  fresh  air 
on  some  fresh  air  mission's  outing.  When  these 
children  got  outside  of  New  York  and  into  the 
open  country,  some  of  them  were  found  sitting 
on  the  top  rail  of  a  fence,  entirely  disconsolate 
and  with  their  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Asked 
why  they  were  sitting  there,  instead  of  romp- 
ing about  enjoying  themselves,  they  said  that 
there  were  no  gutters  to  play  in.  We  had 
brought  their  young  life  to  a  place  where  they 
had  an  invincible  habit  of  the  restrictions  of  city 
life  and  they  couldn't  be  happy  without  them. 
[228] 


EXPRESSION  VERSUS  SUPPRESSION 

The  child-life  and  the  young  life  of  our  great 
cities  was  growing  up  unrecreated. 

So  the  park  was  developed,  and  after  that  the 
playground,  and  it  was  on  a  perfectly  logical 
theory.  Originally  it  was  humanitarian,  philan- 
thropical,  and  benevolent  in  its  start ;  some  kindly 
man  or  some  kindly  woman  who  saw  children 
playing  in  the  street,  where  they  were  likely  to 
be  run  over,  would  say,  "Those  children  ought  to 
have  a  back  yard  to  play  in,  a  little  square,  or 
a  little  common  lot";  and  that  was  provided  for 
them.  Then,  as  always  happens,  philanthropy 
became  the  pioneer  of  the  functions  of  the  State. 
The  business  of  the  philanthropist  is  to  discover 
those  things  which  society  ought  to  do  and,  by 
demonstrating  that  they  can  be  done,  challenge 
the  attention  of  society  to  its  duties.  So  private 
philanthropy  gave  parks  and  playgrounds,  put  up 
swings  and  see-saws,  and  then  the  State  or  so- 
ciety came  in,  either  the  State  government  or  the 
city  government,  and  said:  "This  is  our  duty"; 
and  all  over  the  United  States  now  we  have  parks 
and  playgrounds  in  every  city  and  in  every  place 
where  people  are  gathered  in  any  numbers. 

And  then  the  next  step.  It  was  realized  that 
we  could  not  reproduce  in  a  city,  by  simply  giving 
a  piece  of  ground,  those  normal  opportunities  for 
play  which  occur  in  the  sparsely  settled  country- 
side; that  the  artificiality  of  city  life  intruded 
itself  into  the  playgrounds  and  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  have  supervised  play  in  order  that  it 
[229] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

might  be  wholesome  play;  and  so  we  began  to 
train  experts.  And,  private  philanthropy,  pio- 
neering again,  set  up  schools  for  playground 
teachers,  and  private  persons  employed  them  and 
sent  them  to  the  parks  to  lead  the  children.  And 
after  a  while  society  said,  "We  might  as  well  cut 
down  our  bill  for  policemen,  have  only  one-half 
as  many  policemen  and  hire  some  playground  in- 
structors, leaders,  play-masters,  companions  for 
these  children."  And  so  all  over  the  United 
States  now,  we  know  of  no  city  which  does  not 
have  as  a  part  of  its  city  budget,  recreational 
facilities  and  recreational  instruction. 

I  could  recount  other  steps  in  this  general  di- 
rection. Those  are  the  most  important  ones. 
Now  this  same  impulse  has  been  recognized  in 
the  Boy  Scout  movement, — the  idea  of  getting 
the  boy  out  of  an  unnatural  environment  and 
taking  him  back  to  the  thing  that  it  is  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  boy  to  like  doing,  to  make  a  woodsman 
of  him,  take  him  on  hikes,  and  in  the  doing  of 
these  things  to  give  him  an  opportunity  to  ac- 
quire those  generosities  of  nature  which  belong 
to  the  natural  man. 

The  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  started— I  trust  I  offend 
no  one  by  this  statement  about  it,  I  think  I  am 
historically  accurate — started  originally,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  temper  of  its  time,  as  a  more 
or  less  denominational  or  strictly  religious  move- 
ment with  the  idea  of  gathering  young  men  in, 
in  order  that  they  might  have  formal  religious 
[230] 


EXPRESSION  VERSUS  SUPPRESSION 

exercises,  and  then  it  seized — because  it  was  akin 
to  this  fine  new  thing  that  was  discovered — it 
seized  upon  the  idea  of  recreation  as  a  means  of 
regenerating  the  spirit  and  body  of  young  men. 
Now  all  over  the  United  States  are  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s, 
having  as  one  of  their  most  active  interests  and 
enterprises,  the  athletic  competitions,  the  gym- 
nasia, the  outing  clubs,  all  those  things  which 
tend  to  get  young  men  together  in  wholesome  and 
normal  environment — taking  them  out  into  con- 
tact with  nature  and  relieving  them  of  the  con- 
gestion of  city  life. 

I  don't  suppose  anybody  ever  compiled  in  any 
comprehensive  way  the  statistics  as  to  the  de- 
crease in  criminality  consequent  upon  the  estab- 
lishment of  recreational  facilities.  It  has  been 
studied  in  spots.  In  Chicago  when  they  began 
the  great  playground  movement, — they  have  very 
remarkable  model  playgrounds  in  Chicago, — they 
did  keep  an  accurate  account  of  juvenile  criminal- 
ity in  the  neighborhoods  where  these  places  were 
established.  And  it  showed  almost  instantly  a 
progressive  decrease. 

Finally  we  learned  this  lesson,  these  two  les- 
sons. We  learned  that  where  there  was  a  healthily 
conducted  and  adequate  recreational  opportunity, 
it  was  impossible  for  the  old  downward  tendency 
of  young  men  to  continue;  that  in  the  presence  of 
that  opportunity  the  natural  and  spontaneous 
tendencies  of  young  men  asserted  themselves. 
We  learned  this  other  thing ;  that  the  way  to  keep 
[231] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

young  people  from  doing  bad  things  is  to  give 
them  an  opportunity  to  do  good  things.  There 
is  an  immense  reassurance  in  that.  It  demon- 
strates to  those  who  are  watching  it  and  follow- 
ing it  that  really  the  natural  tendency  of  the 
young  is  toward  the  wholesome  and  the  right 
and  that  it  is  the  occasional  and  accidental  young 
person,  in  an  unfavorable  environment  and  un- 
der the  pressure  of  adverse  circumstances,  who 
acquires  through  such  contacts  the  tendency 
downward. 

I  can  give  you  another  illustration.  We  had 
in  Cleveland  the  problem  of  the  dance  hall.  No 
other  problem  that  we  had  during  the  time  I 
was  connected  with  the  city  government  seemed 
more  refractory  and  difficult.  The  dance  halls 
were  located  at  the  corner  hall,  frequently  over 
saloons,  sometimes  over  perfectly  well-conducted 
saloons.  Cleveland  is  a  large  city  with  a  very 
large  foreign-born  population,  and  the  habit  of 
many  of  those  groups  of  foreign  peoples  was  to 
have  a  hall  built  in  the  middle  of  the  neighbor- 
hood in  which  they  lived,  which  they  would  call 
their  national  hall,  naming  it  after  their  par- 
ticular nationality,  so  that  they  might  meet  there 
for  social  entertainments.  These  halls  frequently 
had  a  dance  hall  annexed,  or  were  used  for  danc- 
ing. But  we  found  that  the  difficulty  with  the 
dance  hall  was  that  it  opened  too  early  and  it 
closed  too  late,  and  it  was  commercialized  by  the 
desire  of  those  who  conducted  the  entertainments 
[232] 


EXPRESSION  VERSUS  SUPPRESSION 

to  admit  as  many  persons  as  possible,  because  the 
admission  was  the  profit  which  went  to  the  person 
who  conducted  the  enterprise.  And  we  found 
that  the  evil  results  of  the  dance  halls  were 
marked  and  difficult  to  combat 

We  started  out  with  the  repressive  idea.  First 
we  put  a  police  officer  in  each  one,  a  kind  of  su- 
pervisor; then  we  put  a  chaperone  in  each  one. 
Some  improvement  took  place  after  each  step. 
And  finally  it  occurred  to  somebody  to  offer  a 
wholesome  substitute  for  the  whole  business  and 
see  how  that  wrould  work.  The  price  in  the  dance 
halls  usually  was  five  cents  a  dance,  for  a  dance 
of  three  minutes.  We  took  two  very  large  pa- 
vilions out  in  public  parks,  closed  them  up  so 
that  they  would  be  comfortable  in  winter  time 
and  opened  dances  conducted  by  the  city  and 
chaperoned  by  carefully  selected  men  and 
women.  We  opened  them  a  little  later  than 
the  ordinary  dance  hall,  and  we  closed  them 
just  enough  earlier  than  the  ordinary  dance  hall 
to  prevent  anybody  going  from  our  dance  to  any- 
body else's  dance — it  was  too  late  to  go  anywhere 
else  when  they  left  us;  and  we  charged,  instead 
of  five  cents  for  three  minutes,  three  cents  for 
five  minutes.  And  everybody  came  to  dance  with 
us!  As  a  consequence,  those  dance  halls  out  in 
our  public  parks,  with  all  of  the  fine  inducement 
which  a  well-protected  and  well-cared- for  city 
park  affords, — flowers  in  flower  beds,  Lake  Erie 
rolling  off  just  in  sight,  good  music,  plenty  of 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

light,  discreet  and  pleasant  persons  about  on  ev- 
ery hand, — made  the  sort  of  social  recreation 
which  those  young  people  really  wanted  and  were 
looking  for. 

These  illustrations  are  somewhat  scattered.  I 
am  going  back  rather  hastily  into  a  period  of  my 
life  which  I  don't  often  get  a  chance  to  think  of 
any  more,  and  am  selecting  those  high  points 
in  my  own  experience  which  remain  with  me  as 
demonstrations  of  the  theory  to  which  I  am 
deeply  committed,  and  which  is  that  one  of  the 
greatest  elements  in  law  enforcement  and  one  of 
the  soundest  character-builders  which  we  have 
yet  discovered,  is  recreation  for  the  young,  recre- 
ation for  the  middle-aged,  and  recreation  for  the 
old. 

Now  consider  our  Army.  That  is  the  thing,  of 
course,  that  is  in  everybody's  heart  and  mind  at 
this  minute.  Here  we  have  an  army  of  large 
size.  We  have  started  to  build  it  by  getting 
these  young  officers  into  training  camps ;  and  we 
called  into  those  training  camps  the  choicest 
young  men  of  this  country,  who  have  been 
through  the  colleges  and  the  high  schools,  where 
attention  was  given  not  only,  under  our  modern 
practice,  to  the  education  of  the  mind,  but  to 
their  recreation  as  well ;  where  their  minds  were 
filled  with  useful  information  and  their  bodies 
were  made  lithe  and  active ;  and  where  their  social 
point  of  view  was  made  sound  by  association 
under  wholesome  and  stimulating  conditions.  We 
[234] 


EXPRESSION  VERSUS  SUPPRESSION 

called  these  young  men  into  our  training  camps — 
and  one  of  them  was  near  enough  to  Washington 
to  allow  most  of  this  audience  to  see  the  splendid 
spirit  of  the  young  men  who  attended  these 
camps. 

Then  we  sent  those  fine  young  officers  out, — 
selected  right  out  of  the  body  of  our  people,  en- 
dowed with  the  best  gifts  that  our  wisest  and 
latest  method  of  dealing  with  young  men  can 
give — we  sent  them  out  to  be  the  officers  of  the 
young  men  whom  we  brought  from  homes  all 
over  the  country  to  form  into  this  army. 

I  have  gone  from  camp  to  camp  and  talked 
with  the  commanding  officers,  and  these  com- 
manders tell  me  that  the  discipline  of  this  army 
is  almost  automatic,  and  that  the  old  problem  of 
disciplining  soldiers  has  almost  ceased  to  exist 
as  a  matter  of  major  concern  and  anxiety.  We 
have  learned  that  the  best  control  in  the  world  is 
self-control,  and  that  the  best  inducement  to  self- 
control  is  the  kind  of  education  that  gives  the 
best  that  is  in  men  normal  opportunity  to  grow 
vigorous. 

I  am  not  idealist  enough  to  imagine  that  the 
time  is  at  all  near  when  we  can  dispense  with 
some  admixture  of  force  in  the  enforcement  of 
police  regulations,  and  I  am  heartily  in  accord 
with  the  belief  that  there  should  be  segregation 
and  isolation  and  quarantine.  We  must  use  the 
power  which  laws  recently  enacted  by  Congress 
have  given  us  to  diminish  as  far  as  we  can  by  re- 
[235] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

pressive  measures,  opportunities  for  vicious  in- 
fections which  would  enfeeble  the  Army.  Yet  I 
am  idealist  enough  to  believe  that  we  have  already 
passed  many  milestones  since  we  left  the  old 
conditions,  and  that  our  progress,  our  substantial 
and  tremendous  progress,  is  going  to  be  along 
the  line  of  healthy  and  wholesome  and  stimulat- 
ing and  strengthening  substitutes  as  counter- 
weights to  temptation. 


[236] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

/  propose  to  speak  of  svme  of  the  work  of  the  War 
Department,  of  some  of  its  mistakes,  and  of  some  of  its 
plans  for  the  future.  There  is  always  between  the  begin- 
ning of  preparation  and  the  final  demonstration  of  its 
success,  a  period  of  questioning.  We  look  back  over  the 
past  and  realize  that  there  have  been  delays  and  that 
there  have  been  shortcomings,  that  there  have  been  things 
which  might  have  been  done  better.  In  so  great  an  enter- 
prise it  is  impossible  for  frankness  not  to  find  these 
things.  But  our  effort  is  to  learn  from  them,  not  to  re- 
peat, to  strengthen  where  there  is  need  of  it;  to  supple- 
ment where  it  is  required;  and,  by  bringing  these  two 
things  together,  our  very  best  effort  and  the  confidence 
of  the  country  back  of  that  effort,  to  make  our  enemies 
feel  finally  the  strength  that  is  really  American. 

BEFORE  THE  SENATE  MILITARY  AFFAIRS 
COMMITTEE,  JANUARY  28,  1918. 

I  PROPOSE  to  speak  of  some  of  the  work  of 
the  War  Department,  of  some  of  its  mis- 
takes, and  of  some  of  its  plans  for  the  future. 
The  country  is  entitled  to  know  what  this  war  is, 
what  its  problems  are,  and  what  steps  have  been 
taken  to  meet  those  problems. 

Also,  I  have  a  deep  sense  of  obligation  to  the 

officers  of  the  Army  and  to  the  civilians  who  have 

from  the  beginning  of  this  difficulty  labored  in 

a  way  which  certainly,  in  my  experience,  has 

[237] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

never  been  equaled  for  devotion,  self-sacrifice, 
and  zeal,  who  have  spent  sleepless  nights  and  tire- 
less days  in  an  effort  to  bring  up  the  organiza- 
tion of  this  great  Army  and  its  use  in  a  military 
enterprise  most  rapidly  and  effectively. 

I  have  seen  strong  and  grizzled  men  of  the 
Army  turn  away  from  my  desk  to  hide  tears 
when  they  were  asked  to  stay  in  this  country  and 
do  organization  work  here  instead  of  going  to 
France  where  the  glory  of  their  profession  lay; 
and  yet  I  have  never  known  one  of  them  to  hesi- 
tate for  a  second  to  obey  the  order,  nor  has  there 
been  any  lack  of  quality  in  the  work  which  any 
of  them  has  done  by  reason  of  his  natural  ambi- 
tion to  be  on  the  field  of  battle  rather  than  in  an 
administrative  task.  Men  of  the  largest  experi- 
ence and  of  the  greatest  talent  in  business  have 
been  included  in  the  great  company  of  civilians 
who  have  come  to  Washington  from  all  over  the 
United  States,  laying  down  their  private  busi- 
ness, sometimes  accepting  salaries  which  office 
boys  at  other  places  enjoy,  sometimes  having  no 
salary  at  all.  They  have  put  up  with  the  inade- 
quate conditions  which  the  city  now  affords  be- 
cause of  its  congested  condition,  and  have  worked 
in  season  and  out  of  season  on  this  undertaking. 

It  would  be  a  tragical  thing  if  this  tremendous 
effort,  this  wholly  unprecedented  sacrifice  made 
by  men,  were  found  to  deserve  the  comment  that 
it  had  failed. 

I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  such  currency 
[238] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

as  that  feeling  has  received  is  due  in  large  part  to 
the  tremendous  impatience  of  the  American  peo- 
ple to  do  this  great  thing  greatly.  Every  one  of 
you,  and  every  one  of  us,  wants  to  demonstrate 
the  thing  which  he  knows  to  be  true;  that  our 
country  is  great  and  strong,  and  in  a  cause  like 
this  will  hit  like  a  man  at  the  adversary  which 
has  attacked  us.  And  always  there  is  between 
the  beginning  of  preparation  and  the  final  dem- 
onstration of  its  success  a  period  of  questioning, 
when  everybody,  you  and  I  and  everybody  else, 
goes  through  searchings  of  heart  to  find  out 
whether  all  has  been  done  that  could  have  been 
or  that  ought  to  have  been  done;  whether  any- 
thing remains  that  can  be  done.  And  we  look  back 
over  the  past  and  realize  that  there  have  been 
delays  and  that  there  have  been  shortcomings, 
that  there  have  been  things  which  might  have 
been  done  better.  In  so  great  an  enterprise  it  is 
impossible  for  frankness  not  to  find  these  things. 

But  our  effort  is  to  learn  from  them,  not  to 
repeat;  to  strengthen  where  there  is  need  of 
it;  to  supplement  where  there  needs  supple- 
menting; and,  by  bringing  two  things  together, 
our  very  best  effort  and  the  confidence  of  the 
country  back  of  that  effort,  to  make  our  enemies 
finally  feel  the  strength  that  is  really  American. 

I  have  no  bias  in  favor  of  individuals.  The 
issue  before  us  is  far  too  large  for  any  preju- 
dice or  favoritism,  and  when  I  discuss,  if  I 
shall  discuss  individuals  by  name,  or  if  I  refer 
[239] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

to  myself,  I  want  it  understood  that  the  appear- 
ance of  any  one  of  us  in  the  casualty  list  any 
morning  is  a  negligible  matter  as  contrasted  with 
the  success  of  this  enterprise.  I  am  not  here 
either  to  defend  individuals,  including  myself, 
or  to  deny  delays,  mistakes,  shortcomings,  or 
false  starts;  but  I  think  I  can  say  with  confi- 
dence that  where  those  things  have  appeared  we 
have  sought  the  remedy ;  that  in  many  places  we 
have  applied  the  remedy.  The  largest  purpose 
I  have  in  being  here  is  to  urge  what  I  do  not  need 
to  urge,  that  your  committee,  that  the  Members 
of  the  Senate  and  the  Members  of  the  House, 
that  every  citizen  in  this  country,  official  and  un- 
official, from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  should 
realize  that  this  is  their  enterprise,  not  quite  so 
much  as  it  is  mine  in  the  sense  of  responsibility, 
but  still  essentially  their  enterprise,  and  to  ask 
from  you  and  from  them  every  suggestion,  every 
criticism,  every  constructive  thought  that  may 
come  to  mind.  I  ask  when  shortcomings  are 
pointed  out  to  you,  whether  they  be  well  founded 
or  whether  they  be  not  well  founded,  that  you 
will  instantly  convey  them  to  me,  so  that  by  the 
processes  which  the  Department  has,  I  may 
search  out  where  blame  is  to  be  attached,  where 
remedies  are  to  be  applied,  and  where  strengthen- 
ing and  improvement  of  the  organization  is 
possible. 

Mr.  Chairman,  you  made  an  address  in  the 
Senate.     It  was  at  the  conclusion  of  an  investi- 
[240] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

gation  of  two  divisions  of  the  War  Department, 
the  Ordnance  and  the  Quartermaster  Depart- 
ments. In  that  investigation  some  shortcomings 
had  been  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
committee — some  delays.  They  fall  readily  un- 
der two  or  three  heads.  The  delays  were  in  the 
midst  of  very  large  and  involved  transactions, 
and  yet,  by  reason  of  the  effort  of  the  committee 
to  trace  them  to  their  ultimate  cause  and  to  get 
their  proper  leadings  and  bearings,  they  assumed 
a  disproportionate  aspect  in  relation  to  what  has 
actually  been  going  on  in  this  war  and  in  the  War 
Department.  And  if  I  may  venture,  with  very 
great  respect  to  the  chairman  and  to  the  com- 
mittee, to  suggest  it,  it  seemed  to  me  at  the  time 
I  read  that  speech  that  perhaps  I  would  feel  about 
it  thus :  That  without  the  intention  of  the  chair- 
man and  without  anybody's  intention,  its  effect 
might  be  to  cause  the  country  to  feel  that  the 
particular  difficulties  and  delays  referred  to  by 
the  chairman  were  characteristic  rather  than  ex- 
ceptional. I  want  therefore  to  address  myself  to 
those  incidents  which  were  pointed  out  by  the 
chairman  in  his  address  to  the  Senate  and  see 
whether  I  can  not,  with  his  permission  and  with 
great  deference  to  him  and  the  committee,  place 
them  in  a  light  which  will  show  that,  rather  than 
being  characteristic,  they  are  instances  of  short- 
comings and  only  instances,  and  that  the  general 
thing  to  which  they  bear  a  relation  is  not  to  be 
inferred  as  characterized  by  those  instances. 
[241] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

If  I  may  say  one  personal  word,  I  should  like 
to  say  that  for  some  reason,  which  I  do  not  un- 
derstand, when  I  appeared  before  your  committee 
in  these  hearings  with  the  intention  of  being 
frank,  weighed  down,  as  I  have  been  ever  since  I 
have  been  Secretary  of  War,  by  accumulating 
difficulties  in  that  Department  (  for  I  became  Sec- 
retary of  War  on  the  night  that  Villa  crossed  the 
border  and  raided  Columbus,  and  the  Department 
has  been  an  active  department  ever  since,  and 
there  has  been  no  hour  thereafter  when  I  have 
not  felt  that  the  responsibilities  which  rested  upon 
me  were  of  the  very  gravest  kind  and  when  I 
have  not  wondered  constantly  where  I  might  find 
the  strength  to  meet  those  responsibilities),  yet 
for  some  reason,  with  that  sense  of  my  duty 
and  my  task,  and  with  the  utmost  desire  to  aid 
this  committee  to  develop  all  that  it  wanted  to 
know  and  all  that  there  was,  I  seem  yet  to  have 
left,  at  least  upon  the  minds  of  some  members  of 
the  committee,  a  feeling  that  I  was  fencing  in  or- 
der to  defend  the  actions  of  my  subordinates  when 
that  was  not  my  intention. 

I  have  brought  down  here  to-day,  Mr.  Chair- 
man, no  hurriedly  gathered  data  with  regard  to 
divisions  of  the  War  Department  and  their  activ- 
ities, which  you  have  not  as  yet  inquired  into.  I 
am  here,  if  I  can,  to  make  a  compendious  state- 
ment of  the  whole  situation,  and  if  there  be,  as 
doubtless  there  will  be  and  ought  to  be,  other 
[242] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

phases  of  the  War  Department's  work  which 
your  committee  desires  to  go  into,  I  trust  you  will 
go  into  them  thoroughly,  and  when  you  have  de- 
tected any  shortcoming  or  defect,  I  need  not  tell 
you  that  if  you  bring  it  to  my  attention  I  will  do 
all  I  can,  and  that  speedily  and  without  fear  or 
favor  of  person,  to  correct,  adjust,  and  improve  it. 
The  chairman  of  the  committee  read  to  the 
Senate  twTo  letters  dealing  with  instances  of 
neglect  of  the  dead.  They  are  pathetic  letters. 
They  arouse  every  instinct  of  resentment  and 
indignation  that  a  man  can  have.  I  had  not  seen 
those  letters  before.  At  once,  upon  hearing  of 
them,  I  wrote  to  the  chairman  of  the  committee 
and  asked  for  the  names  of  the  writers  of  those 
letters  and  the  camps  in  which  those  incidents 
were  reported  to  have  taken  place.  I  wanted, 
and  I  want  now,  to  follow  those  through  to  the 
very  end  to  find  out  who  was  guilty  of  this  inhu- 
man treatment,  to  find  out  who  was  responsible 
for  the  conditions  complained  of  there,  in  order 
that  I  may  punish  those  who  are  guilty.  The 
chairman  has  felt  that  those  letters  came  to  him 
in  a  confidential  way  and  has  suggested  that  he 
will  endeavor  to  have  himself  relieved  from 
that  confidence  so  that  I  can  ultimately  get  those 
names  and  redress  the  wrong.  Those  are  two  in- 
stances. I  have  had  others.  I  have  not  had 
those  two,  but  it  may  interest  the  committee  to 
know  that  with  more  than  a  million  men  in  arms 
[243] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

in  this  country,  with  great  hospital  establishments 
in  all  these  camps,  with  hospitals  established  in 
many  camps  other  than  those  which  are  directly 
devoted  to  the  National  Army,  the  National 
Guard,  and  the  Regular  Army,  the  number  of 
complaints  has  been  relatively  small,  perhaps 
some  dozen  and  a  half.  In  each  instance  when 
the  complaint  came,  if  it  dealt  with  a  question  of 
shortage  of  supplies,  it  has  been  referred  to  the 
Surgeon  General  of  the  Army  in  order  that  in- 
stant corrective  steps  might  be  taken,  but  where 
it  involved  a  breakdown  in  the  human  element; 
where  it  involved  some  man  who  was  intrusted 
with  responsibility  as  to  the  life  and  welfare  and 
safe  custody  of  another  individual;  the  remedy 
has  been  always  to  refer  it  to  the  Inspector  Gen- 
eral of  the  Army  for  immediate  investigation, 
with  the  recommendation  as  to  a  course  of  action 
to  be  taken  which  would  not  only  be  corrective, 
but  punitive  where  fault  lay. 

I  have  before  me  here  the  report  of  the  In- 
spector General  on  the  cases  with  which  he  has 
had  to  deal.  Many  of  them  show  that  com- 
plaints which,  at  the  outset,  looked  serious,  were 
not  in  fact  serious.  Some  of  them  show  that 
the  situation  was  serious,  and  remedies  and 
courses  of  discipline  are  suggested.  I  have,  for 
instance,  a  case  somewhat  similar  to  the  one 
which  the  chairman  had,  the  report  of  the  ship- 
ping home  of  a  body  of  a  soldier  unclothed.  In 
[244] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

this  case  the  soldier  was  killed  at  the  Toronto 
Flying  Field,  his  clothing  was  removed,  his  body 
was  wrapped  in  a  winding  sheet,  and  it  was  re- 
ceived at  the  home  of  his  parents  thus  unclothed. 
Immediate  inquiry  was  made  and  it  was  discov- 
ered that  that  flying  unit  was  under  the  control 
of  a  major  of  the  Royal  Flying  Corps  of  the 
British  army;  that  he  followed  the  British  cus- 
tom of  removing  the  clothes  of  the  deceased  and 
returning  them  in  a  separate  parcel.  The  under- 
taker there  employed  to  deal  with  this  body  dealt 
with  it  as  the  English  and  the  Canadians  are  ac- 
customed to  do.  Immediate  instructions  were  is- 
sued that  there  should  be  an  American  officer  at 
that  camp  and  that  the  American  practice  should 
prevail  should  such  a  catastrophe  happen  again. 
I  have  here  a  case  of  neglect  of  a  patient,  not 
leading  to  a  fatal  result,  at  Camp  Wheeler.  The 
Inspector  General  investigated  it  in  a  judicial 
manner  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  condi- 
tions did  not  actually  justify  the  complaint,  but 
that  in  the  bitterness  of  her  distress  the  wife  of 
this  soldier  felt  that  something  more  might  have 
been  done  if  she  could  have  had  her  soldier  home 
with  her.  In  the  judgment  of  the  Inspector 
General  her  complaints  were  based  upon  that  sort 
of  distressed  imagination,  with  which  we  are  all 
familiar.  No  further  remedy  in  that  particular 
case  was  suggested  than  that  care  and  consid- 
eration should  be  had  in  dealing  with  the  rela- 
tives. 

[245] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

The  first  case  of  all  which  came  to  my  personal 
attention  came  from  Plattsburg,  where  a  com- 
plaint was  made  of  the  mistreatment  of  a  soldier 
by  a  surgeon.  I  sent  immediately  for  the  record, 
I  examined  it  personally,  and  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  that  particular  officer,  a  man  called 
in  from  civil  life  when  the  emergency  arose  and 
the  rapid  expansion  of  the  medical  corps  required 
it,  had  failed  to  understand  his  responsibility, 
and  I  therefore  dismissed  him  from  the  Army. 

There  are  few  cases,  however;  they  amount 
perhaps  to  a  dozen  or  so  altogether,  and  there  are 
no  others  of  a  graver  nature  than  those  I  have 
instanced,  no  others  differing  in  character  from 
those  that  I  have  cited.  The  whole  record,  of 
course,  is  at  the  disposal  of  the  committee,  if  it 
desires  it. 

In  order  that  you  may  realize,  Mr.  Chairman, 
that  I  am  trying  to  be  thorough  in  this  matter, 
I  will  say  that  there  are  still  in  the  hands  of  the 
Inspector  General  nine  cases  which  are  being  in- 
vestigated ;  three  allege  general  bad  conditions  in 
hospital  service;  two,  inefficient  medical  treat- 
ment; another  complaint  is  as  to  careless  prepa- 
ration for  burial;  two  are  complaints  of  neglect 
by  surgeons,  and  the  last  one  is  a  simulation  of  ill- 
ness with  the  connivance  of  a  surgeon.  I  men- 
tion these,  not  because  they  are  as  yet  demon- 
strated to  be  true,  but  because  they  are  complaints 
that  have  come  to  the  department  and  have  been 
[246] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

put  into  the  hands  of  that  officer  of  the  army  who, 
by  reason  of  the  fact  that  he  bears  no  relation  to 
any  other  branch  or  bureau  of  the  service,  is  in- 
trusted with  the  investigation  of  every  complaint 
of  this  character.  They  are  now  being  investi- 
gated by  men  trained  for  such  work  for  the  pur- 
pose of  report  and  recommendation. 

There  are  two  cases  which  illustrate,  in  my 
judgment,  the  attitude  of  the  department  on  this 
subject.  The  first  is  that  of  a  lieutenant, 
charged  with  neglect  of  patients  at  the  base  hos- 
pital at  Camp  Beauregard,  Louisiana.  He  was 
court-martialed  and  sentenced  to  be  dismissed 
from  the  service.  The  other  case  is  that  of  an- 
other lieutenant,  charged  with  neglect  of  pa- 
tients, court-martialed,  and  sentenced  to  be  dis- 
missed from  the  Army.  Their  cases  present  sub- 
stantially the  same  facts.  These  medical  officers 
were  in  their  hospitals ;  in  one  case,  an  ambulance 
drove  up  and  a  man  was  brought  in  claiming  to 
be  sick.  The  doctor  made  a  hasty  examination, 
looked  at  him,  felt  his  pulse,  or  something  of  that 
kind,  and  ordered  him  back,  saying  that  he  was 
not  sick.  In  other  words,  the  doctor  did  not  do 
the  things  he  ought  to  have  done ;  he  did  not  ex- 
amine the  patient  and  diagnose  his  difficulty  in 
either  of  these  cases,  and  the  result  was  that  in 
both  of  them  severe  illness  developed,  and  death 
resulted. 

When  those  cases  came  to  me,  I  had  them  re- 
[247] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

viewed  by  the  Judge  Advocate  General  to  see 
what  further  could  be  done.  A  court-martial 
organized  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  the 
army  and  of  the  land  had  sat  upon  these  cases 
and  apportioned  the  punishment  as  dismissal 
from  the  army.  But  when  the  Judge  Advocate 
General  reviewed  it  for  me  he  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  that  sort  of  neglect  went  much  deeper, 
and  recommended  that  both  of  those  cases  be  sent 
back  to  the  court-martial  which  had  tried  them, 
and  that  such  imprisonment  as  could  be  added 
under  the  statutes  of  this  country  for  that  kind 
of  neglect  should  be  added  to  the  penalty  of  dis- 
missal. 

As  the  letters  I  wrote  on  the  subject  will  cover 
the  details  of  the  cases  accurately,  I  therefore 
file  and  put  into  the  record  two  letters,  written 
respectively  on  the  8th  and  9th  of  January,  in 
which  the  action  taken  was  the  firm  action  of  the 
Department,  turning  its  face  against  callous  dis- 
regard of  the  interests  of  soldiers.  I  want  the 
country  to  know  that,  though  we  have  had  to  take 
doctors  out  of  civil  life,  because  the  number  of 
doctors  in  this  country  trained  in  hospital  man- 
agement and  in  group  treatment  of  cases  is  lim- 
ited, the  lives  and  the  welfare  and  the  illnesses  of 
these  soldiers  are  a  responsibility  which  I  will  not 
permit  to  be  dodged  or  handled  in  any  cavalier 
fashion,  and  the  policy  of  the  department  is  one 
of  punishment  where  guilt  is  involved. 
[248] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

In  addition  to  this,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  may  per- 
haps be  permitted  to  say  a  word  or  two  about 
what  has  been  done  in  this  matter  by  the  War 
Department  through  the  Surgeon  General's  office. 
When  illness  broke  out  in  the  camps  I  sent  the 
Surgeon  General  in  person  to  inspect  conditions, 
and  when  he  made  his  reports — the  reports  came 
to  me  involving  criticism  of  various  kinds  as  to 
congestion,  and  other  causes  of  illness — I  handed 
them  in  person  to  the  newspapers.  I  thought  it 
important  that  the  country  should  know  exactly 
the  conditions  and  exactly  the  causes,  for  two  rea- 
sons :  In  the  first  place  I  wanted  no  concealment, 
and  in  the  second  place,  I  wanted  the  help  of  the 
country  in  correcting  the  situation. 

In  addition  to  that  I  wrote  a  memorandum  to 
the  Chief  of  Staff,  that,  in  my  judgment,  the 
Surgeon  General's  Office  ought  to  organize  a 
system  of  continuous  and  constant  inspection,  for 
while  there  is  a  medical  officer  representing  the 
Surgeon  General's  Office  in  every  one  of  these 
camps,  and  while  the  commanding  general  in 
each  of  these  camps  is  chargeable  with  responsi- 
bility for  general  conditions  in  his  camp,  I  wanted 
to  make  this  additional  provision,  that  the  Sur- 
geon General's  Office  itself  would  organize  a  con- 
tinuing system  of  inspection  from  day  to  day 
of  these  conditions.  I  instructed  the  Inspector 
General,  who  has  inspectors  going  from  camp  to 
camp,  that  he  should  especially  charge  his  men 
to  examine  into  and  report  upon  conditions  in 
[249] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

the  hospitals.  Finally,  I  telegraphed  to  a  very 
great  hospital  expert,  Dr.  John  A.  Hornsby — 
I  did  not  know  at  the  time  that  he  was  in  the 
medical  service  of  the  Army  but  I  happened  to 
have  had  some  previous  contact  with  him  when  I 
was  superintending  the  building  of  a  city  hospital 
in  Cleveland,  and  learned  at  that  time  of  his  great 
experience  in  all  matters  of  hospital  management 
and  construction — I  telegraphed  him  to  come  to 
Washington  in  order  that  I  might  select  him 
as  my  personal  inspector  to  go,  without  rela- 
tion to  any  other  part  of  the  War  Department, 
from  camp  to  camp  and  hospital  to  hospital  and 
make  directly  to  me  recommendations  with  re- 
gard to  necessary  improvements. 

When  Dr.  Hornsby  came  to  Washington  he 
came  in  a  uniform,  showing  that  the  Surgeon 
General's  Office  had  already  drafted  his  talents 
and  had  already  assigned  him  to  the  task  which 
I  intended  he  should  perform,  and  it  happens 
that  I  have  here  in  my  hand  at  this  moment  a 
telegram  from  Major  Hornsby  with  regard  to  the 
conditions  at  Camp  Pike,  one  of  the  camps  which 
has  been  under  comment. 

The  telegram  is  as  follows: 

"CAMP  PIKE,  ARK.,  Jan.  23,  1918 
"SURGEON  GENERAL  ARMY, 

"Mills  Building,  Washington,  D.  C. : 
"Conditions  at  Camp  Pike  greatly  improved. 
[250] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

Morbidity  lower,  types  milder.  Ample  accom- 
modations for  all  sick.  Convalescents  and  mild 
cases  housed  well  in  unoccupied  barracks.  Roots 
(that  is,  Camp  Logan  H.  Roots)  has  taken  200 
cases  and  will  be  ready  for  500  at  once.  No 
pressing  need  now.  Leave  here  for  Washington 
Thursday  night  to  report  unless  otherwise  or- 
dered. Address  care  Col.  Thornburg. 

"(Signed)  JOHN  A.  HORNSBY." 

I  shall  not,  Mr.  Chairman,  read  individual 
testimony,  although  I  have  a  great  number  of  let- 
ters and  messages  from  men  who  have  gone  to 
hospitals  and  found  the  conditions  good,  for  the 
reason  that  that  is  what  conditions  ought  to  be; 
and  it  adds  nothing  to  the  case  to  say  that  this 
man  or  this  woman,  this  father  or  this  mother, 
has  gone  to  a  hospital  and  found  a  boy  well  cared 
for;  that  is  what  ought  to  be  the  universal  rule. 
And  yet  I  have  a  letter  this  morning,  whfch  I  re- 
ceived yesterday,  and  which  I  think  I  will  read 
into  the  record,  because  it  is  from  a  woman  of 
national  fame;  a  woman  who,  for  the  last  four 
months,  has  gone  from  camp  to  camp  in  the 
United  States  writing  about  them,  and  printing 
her  observations  in  public  magazines  and  week- 
lies; who  has  done  me  the  favor  and  honor  to 
come  a  number  of  times  to  me  personally  to  re- 
port upon  these  things  she  has  seen.  It  is  a  let- 
ter from  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart.  As  a  matter 
[251] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

of  fact  I  gave  Mrs.  Rinehart,  as  I  now  recall  it,  a 
letter  which  would  admit  her  into  any  camp  and 
enable  her  to  inspect  it. 

Mrs.  Rinehart's  letter  is  as  follows: 

NEW  YORK,  January  26,  1918. 
"To  the  Honorable  NEWTON  D.  BARER, 

"Secretary,   Department   of   War,   Washing- 
ton, D.  C. 
"Mv  DEAR  MR.  SECRETARY: 

"I  have  just  been  reading  that  tragic  letter 
from  an  unknown  father  read  by  Senator  Cham- 
berlain during  the  present  Senatorial  investiga- 
tion. Its  sincerity  can  not  be  questioned.  As  a 
mother,  and  as  the  mother  of  a  soldier,  I  feel,  as 
every  one  must,  the  deepest  grief  and  sympathy 
with  the  parents  of  that  dead  boy. 

"Like  every  other  mother  in  the  country,  I 
want  these  cases  known.  I  want  to  be  assured 
that  they  will  be  known.  I  want  drastic  punish- 
ment applied  to  any  man,  of  no  matter  what 
rank,  who  is  found  guilty  of  negligence  in  the 
care,  physical  or  moral,  of  our  boys.  And  I 
want  immediate  remedy  of  conditions  that  re- 
quire remedy. 

"But  I  do  feel  that  some  step  should  be  taken 
to  reassure  our  women  just  now.  It  is  only  fair 
to  them.  It  is  cruel  to  allow  every  mother  in 
the  country  to  judge  the  medical  care  that  will 
be  given  to  her  boy  while  in  the  service,  because 
[252] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

here  and  there,  in  the  chaos  of  our  readjustment, 
men  have  been  given  responsibilities  they  are  un- 
able or  unwilling  to  fulfill.  That  we  have  such 
men  is  more  than  a  national  misfortune.  That 
they  have  been  placed  in  positions  of  trust  is  a 
national  calamity.  But  the  mothers  of  the 
country  should  know  in  fairness  to  themselves 
that  the  number  of  such  inefficients  is  small.  We 
will  not  rest,  we  women,  until  they  have  all  been 
removed.  But  that,  I  know,  will  be  at  once.  It 
must  be  at  once. 

"I  have  a  son  in  an  army  cantonment.  He 
enlisted  as  a  private.  He  would  receive,  if  he 
became  ill,  exactly  the  same  treatment  as  any 
other  enlisted  men  in  our  new  army.  And  I 
should  have  not  only  no  hesitation  in  placing  him 
in  the  cantonment  hospital,  but  I  should  do  it 
with  absolute  confidence.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
he  has  already  spent  a  few  days  there  with  an 
infected  knee,  and  received  the  best  of  care. 

"I  know  something  about  hospitals.  I  took 
a  nurse's  training  as  a  girl.  I  married  a  member 
of  my  hospital  staff,  and  I  have  been  for  many 
years  constantly  in  touch  with  hospitals.  Dur- 
ing the  first  year  of  the  war  I  visited  the  hospi- 
tals of  France  and  England.  Since  we  went 
into  the  war  I  have,  with  the  avowed  intention  of 
seeing,  for  the  women  of  America,  that  our  boys 
are  to  be  well  cared  for  in  every  possible  way, 
visited  many  training  camps  and  camp  hospitals. 
[253] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

"There  are  conditions  to  be  remedied.  As  I 
reported  to  you  very  recently,  the  failure  of  sup- 
plies has  been  a  serious  matter.  There  are  not 
enough  women  nurses.  The  quarters  of  both 
nurses  and  doctors  must  be  enlarged  in  many 
cases.  The  percentage  of  serious  illness  has  been 
low  in  the  cantonments — I  am  not  speaking  of 
the  camps — but  the  percentage  of  mild  conta- 
gions, which  always  occur  when  men  are  brought 
together  in  the  mass,  and  of  heavy  colds  and 
bronchitis,  has  been  high.  The  result  of  sending 
men  with  heavy  colds  for  a  few  days  into  the 
hospital  has  resulted  in  rather  higher  figures  than 
the  seriousness  of  the  situation  would  otherwise 
justify. 

"Of  cruelty  and  indifference  I  have  found  noth- 
ing. On  the  contrary,  I  have  found  the  medical 
staffs  of  the  hospitals  both  efficient  and  humane. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  the  medical  men 
of  these  National  Army  hospitals  are  volunteers, 
who  have  cheerfully  relinquished  the  result  of 
years  of  labor  to  give  their  services  to  the  coun- 
try, that  they  are  of  the  best  we  have,  as  all  vol- 
unteers are,  that  they  are  willingly  undergoing 
deprivation  and  hardship  to  take  care  of  our 
boys,  it  is  wrong  that  the  country  at  large  should 
so  misjudge  them.  The  best  specialists  of  the 
country  have  placed  themselves  at  the  disposal 
of  the  Army  Medical  Department,  and  ninety- 
nine  out  of  a  hundred  men  in  the  drafted  army 
[254] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

are  receiving  better  care  than  they  could  afford, 
under  the  best  circumstances,  to  receive  at  home. 

"Nursing  is  on  the  same  high  plane.  Again  we 
find  volunteers,  highly  skilled  and  carefully 
trained  women,  who  have  taken  the  small  pay 
and  the  discomforts  of  army  life  that  they  may 
serve  where  they  are  most  needed. 

"Wards  are  large  and  airy.  Beds  are  comfort- 
able. I  have  found  exquisite  cleanliness  every- 
where. Moreover,  I  have  found  cheerfulness. 
Food  is  good  and  plentiful.  I  have  examined 
storerooms  and  kitchens,  and  watched  the  diets 
being  served  under  the  direction  of  a  woman 
dietitian. 

"I  do  not  like  the  orderly  system.  There  should 
be  more  trained  nurses.  At  present  the  wards 
where  there  are  no  serious  cases  are  managed 
by  a  ward-master,  an  enlisted  man.  And  with 
the  best  intention  in  the  world,  he  is  not  always 
efficient.  The  lack  of  nurses  is  a  serious  one,  and 
could  be  remedied  probably  by  an  appeal  to  nurses 
to  volunteer.  But  here  again  is  the  serious  ques- 
tion of  the  ill  at  home,  the  same  which  faces 
the  medical  profession  and  the  civilian  hospitals. 

"One  hospital  I  know  well.  It  is  typical  of 
other  cantonment  hospitals,  it  is  under  the  same 
Army  Medical  Department  direction  as  the  oth- 
ers, and  it  is  only  right  to  assume  that  conditions 
there  are  representative.  The  same  rules  govern 
all  these  hospitals.  The  same  sums  are  spent 
[255] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

on  them.  The  same  system  is  followed.  The 
food  is  the  same,  the  supplies,  the  medical  staff, 
the  nurses. 

"And  I  have  never  seen  a  better  war  hospital 
than  the  one  at  Camp  Sherman.  I  will  go 
further,  and  say  that  in  its  operating  rooms,  its 
X-ray  department,  its  eye  and  ear  department, 
its  nose  and  throat  department,  its  dental  depart- 
ment, in  short,  in  its  facilities  for  caring  for 
every  emergency  and  every  weakness  it  will  bear 
comparison  with  any  civilian  hospital. 

"And  what'is  true  of  the  base  hospital  at  Camp 
Sherman  is  true  of  the  others. 

"I  have  watched  the  development  of  the  war 
hospital  system  from  the  beginning,  when  I  saw 
it  first  on  paper  in  the  office  of  the  Surgeon  Gen- 
eral up  to  two  weeks  ago.  I  watched  because  it 
was  a  vital  matter  to  me.  I  had  a  husband  and 
a  son  in  the  service.  I  am  like  the  other  women 
of  this  country.  I  would  be  content  with  noth- 
ing less  than  the  best.  And  I  feel  that  we  are 
on  the  way  to  the  best. 

"It  has  not  come  yet,  although  at  the  present 
moment,  I  would  willingly  trust  any  member  of 
my  family,  in  such  emergency,  in  any  one  of 
our  base  hospitals.  We  need  more  supplies,  we 
need  more  nurses  and  enlarged  quarters  for 
them.  Sixty  or  even  eighty  nurses,  divided 
into  shifts  of  eight  hours  each,  is  totally  insuffi- 
cient for  a  thousand  men.  We  even  need  more 
[256] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

physicians  and  surgeons.  Although  the  staffs 
are  very  large,  the  medical  department  in  each 
hospital  is  working  to  its  maximum. 

''But  what  we  need,  as  a  nation,  is  something 
more  than  this.  We  need  knowledge  and  reas- 
surance. There  is  no  need  in  this  country  for 
discontented  resignation.  I  would  suggest  that 
a  committee  of  representative  and  unprejudiced 
citizens  from  the  nearest  city  visit  each  of  these 
base  hospitals  and  thoroughly  inspect  it.  And 
that  they  publish  in  their  local  papers  the  exact 
results  of  their  investigations.  Let  them  go 
alone,  to  talk  with  the  patients,  the  nurses,  the 
doctors,  the  ward  masters.  And  let  them  tell 
exactly  what  they  find. 

"The  women  of  the  country  must  know  the 
facts.  They  have  the  right  to  know  them.  It 
is  not  fair  to  let  them  believe,  as  many  of  them 
now  do,  that  the  great  and  humane  American 
people  is  not  caring  for  the  men  who  are  to  fight 
to  save  them.  We  are  preparing  against  the 
inevitable  losses  of  war.  It  is  not  fair  to  let 
any  of  us  believe  that  there  is  useless  death, 
and  we  are  wasting  lives  we  would  die  to  save. 

"And  it  is  not  true. 
"Faithfully,  yours, 
"(Signed)  MARY  ROBERTS  RINSHART." 

There  is  no  suggestion  of  remedy  in  that  letter 
which  does  not  have  my  instant  approval.     In 
addition  to  all  the  things  which  Mrs.  Rinehart 
[257] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

suggests — and  few  are  novel — are  a  number 
which  I  have  already  described  to  you  as  being 
done.  Let  me  point  out  to  the  committee  that, 
from  the  very  beginning  of  this  war  the  heads  of 
the  medical  profession,  the  very  masters  of  that 
profession,  have  been  in  constant  contact  with  the 
Surgeon  General.  He  has  formed  around  him 
a  staff  the  like  of  which  probably  does  not  exist 
on  the  face  of  the  earth,  for  building  hospitals, 
devising  an  organization,  and  supervising  its  per- 
fection. One  must  consider  that  the  average  doc- 
tor, whose  attention  has  been  devoted  to  the  treat- 
ment of  individual  cases,  under  home  conditions, 
under  the  necessities  of  this  situation  has  been 
thrown  into  a  great  organization  where  he  is 
compelled  to  deal  with  hospital  conditions  and 
groups  of  men  and  sanitation,  all  on  a  large  scale. 
While  it  may  be,  and  is,  deeply  to  be  regretted 
that  there  should  even  be  the  necessity  of  im- 
provement, yet  the  direction  of  this  great  medical 
staff  of  men,  the  zeal  and  loyalty  and  patriotism 
and  efficiency  of  the  medical  profession  are  all  at 
work  rapidly  bettering  it  and  the  improvement 
already  wrought  is  very  great. 

We  are  not  alone,  Mr.  Chairman.  Our  coun- 
try is  not  alone  in  meeting  with  these  difficulties. 
No  army  was  ever  assembled,  nor  can  any  be, 
which  does  not  bring  men  together  who  thereto- 
fore have  been  exposed  to  communicable  diseases, 
to  which  they  are  not  immune.  The  most  which 
can  be  done  is  to  meet  these  conditions  with  every 
[258] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

device  and  suggestion  which  science  and  care  can 
devise.  That,  in  my  frank  judgment,  is  the  aim 
of  the  Surgeon  General,  and  in  the  doing  of  it 
he  has  the  unqualified  support,  and  he  knows  it, 
of  every  officer  in  the  War  Department  from  the 
Secretary  down. 

Mr.  Chairman,  the  second  set  of  difficulties 
which  you  discussed  with  regard  to  the  War  De- 
partment were  those  affecting  the  supply  of  ord- 
nance. In  my  previous  hearing  before  the  com- 
mittee we  went  into  that  with  great  fullness. 
Clearly  there  are  things  about  the  supply  of  mu- 
nitions of  war  about  which  men's  minds  may 
differ.  Not  merely  the  relative  excellence  of  cer- 
tain weapons,  but  the  extent  to  which  speed  of 
procurement  should  be  sacrificed  for  excellence  of 
performance  when  procured,  are  questions  of 
judgment,  and  their  solution  lies  in  the  best  in- 
structed advice  one  can  secure. 

The  first  question  of  that  kind  which  arose 
affected  the  selection  of  a  rifle  for  the  army, 
one  involving  the  caliber  of  the  rifle.  The  situ- 
ation was,  that  the  English  were  using  a  rifle 
with  a  rimmed  cartridge  of  one  caliber,  and  the 
French  were  using  a  rifle  with  a  rimmed  cart- 
ridge of  another  caliber.  We,  in  America,  had, 
admittedly,  the  best  rifle  so  far  developed  in  any 
military  service,  the  Springfield,  using  a  rimless 
cartridge,  and  we  had  in  stock  of  those  weapons 
something  like  600,000 — in  stock  and  in  the 
[259] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

hands  of  troops.  This  was  early  in  the  spring, 
although  my  recollection  does  not  permit  me  to 
fix  a  definite  date.  The  question  had  been  in- 
vestigated prior  to  that  time,  in  order  that  there 
might  be  a  summary  view  of  the  possibilities  of 
rapid  procurement  of  various  types  of  rifles. 
Finally  the  choice  of  a  weapon  was  decided  in 
my  office,  as  nearly  as  my  recollection  holds,  at 
about  1 1  o'clock  at  night,  and  there  were  present 
in  that  conference,  General  Crozier,  the  Chief  of 
Ordnance ;  General  Scott,  the  Chief  of  Staff ;  Gen- 
eral Bliss,  the  Assistant  Chief  of  Staff ;  General 
Kuhn,  the  Chief  of  the  Army  War  College;  one 
or  two  other  officers  associated  with  the  War 
College ;  the  Ordnance  Department  experts  on  the 
subject  of  rifles ;  and  General  Pershing. 

At  that  time  General  Pershing  had  been  se- 
lected as  the  commander-in-chief  of  our  forces 
ultimately  to  be  dispatched  to  France,  and  as  he 
was  to  command  the  Army  and  was  to  use  the 
forces,  it  seemed  an  especially  fortunate  circum- 
stance that  he  should  be  in  Washington  and  able 
to  participate  in  that  conference. 

We  did  not  know  then,  as  I  shall  illustrate 
a  little  later  to  the  committee,  whether  our  Army 
was  to  fight  with  the  French  or  with  the  Eng- 
lish. The  mode  of  our  military  operations  was 
not  determined.  The  excellence  of  our  weapon 
was  so  well  known  that  just  before  the  outbreak 
of  this  war,  the  British  Government  had  decided 
to  remodel  its  weapon  and  rearm  its  army,  and 
[260] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

they  were  on  the  point  of  manufacturing  a  modifi- 
cation of  their  own  Enfield  rifle,  which  would  use 
a  rimless  cartridge,  and  thus  obviate  the  possibil- 
ity of  jamming  in  the  weapon,  making  it  a  better 
weapon.  The  sudden  outbreak  of  the  war  com- 
pelled immediate  equipment  supplementing  that 
which  they  had,  and,  fearing  the  confusion  of  us- 
ing a  new  weapon  in  conjunction  with  their  old 
weapon,  and  trying,  pari  passu,  to  rearm  their 
army,  they  decided  to  adhere  to  their  Enfield  rifle 

That  conference  considered  every  aspect  of  this 
question,  and  it  was  finally  decided  to  use  our 
own  Springfield  rifle,  and  to  procure  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  Enfield  which  would  allow  it  to  be 
chambered  for  American  ammunition,  in  order 
to  get  the  advantage  of  the  large  and  organized 
manufacturing  facilities  already  built  up  in  this 
country  for  the  production  of  the  Enfield.  That 
decision,  made  that  night,  had  the  unanimous 
concurrence  of  every  person  in  the  conference. 
The  Master  of  Ordnance  and  Production,  the 
Chief  of  the  Army  War  College,  with  his  techni- 
cal advisers  and  experts,  the  Chief  of  Staff  and 
his  assistants,  and  the  Commanding  General  of 
the  expeditionary  forces,  whose  army  and  its  use- 
fulness were  at  stake,  were  present. 

When  we  undertook  to  remodel  the  Enfield 
rifle,  it  was  discovered,  that  although  there  were 
three  plants  in  this  country  manufacturing  it,  the 
bolt  from  one  factory  would  not  fit  the  rifle  from 
another  factory.  Instantly  the  question  arose  of 
[261] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

procuring  interchangeability  in  the  rifles  pro- 
duced. 

At  the  outset  it  was  thought  that  some  eight 
or  nine  interchangeable  parts  would  be  enough. 
Later  it  seemed  advisable  to  increase  that  num- 
ber. 

It  was  decided  that  a  larger  degree  of  inter- 
changeability  should  be  required,  in  order  that 
when  these  rifles  got  to  France  and  were  used 
under  battle  conditions,  if  a  man  found  himself 
with  a  defective  weapon,  and  alongside  him  was 
another  defective  weapon,  he  could,  if  the  emer- 
gency required  it,  take  out  of  one  defective  wea- 
pon a  perfect  part  and  replace  the  defective  part 
in  his  own  weapon,  and  be  equipped ;  in  order  in 
short  to  enable  us  to  repair  rapidly  rifles  rendered 
inefficient  in  service,  so  that  a  constant  supply  of 
these  weapons  will  be  ready  at  the  front. 

There  was  some  delay  in  designing  with  the 
particularity  necessary — tolerances  of  a  thou- 
sandth of  an  inch  in  some  instances — specifica- 
tions for  this  remodeled  Enfield,  and  that  delay 
led  to  this  result :  That  when  our  troops  actually 
were  assembled  in  the  camps  it  was  some  time 
before  they  were  fully  armed  with  rifles.  At  the 
outset  they  had  very  few  rifles.  There  was  a  dis- 
tribution of  Krags  and  obsolescent  weapons,  in 
order  that  they  might  drill  with  them,  but  it  was 
some  time  before  they  were  adequately  supplied 
with  the  remodeled  Enfield  rifle. 

That  was  foreseen.  Gen.  Leonard  Wood  came 
[262] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

to  my  office — I  have  forgotten  when,  but  it  was 
early — and  suggested  to  me  the  advisability  of 
instantly  calling  out  a  larger  army.  I  said,  "But, 
General,  we  have  not  the  clothes  and  we  have  not 
the  weapons  for  them."  He  said,  "I  know  that, 
Mr.  Secretary,  but  they  need  many  things,  before 
they  need  the  rifles.  They  need  to  learn  to  live 
together,  get  used  to  camp  conditions,  they  need 
the  elemental  discipline  of  camp  life.  They  need 
to  be  taught  to  keep  step,  they  need  to  know  the 
subordinations  of  the  Army,  and  it  will  take  some 
time  to  give  them  that  preliminary  instruction." 
He  pointed  out  to  me  that  in  England  the  so- 
called  Kitchener  army  drilled  for  months,  as  he 
said,  in  their  civilian  clothes,  with  top  hats  and 
using  a  stick  for  arms.  I  said  to  him,  "General, 
I  agree  with  you  that  it  is  important  to  have  our 
army  equipped  rapidly  so  that  a  prolonged  period 
of  training  may  be  given  to  them ;  but  we  will  call 
out  first  the  Regular  Army  and  then  we  will  call 
out  the  National  Guard,  building  it  up  to  war 
strength.  But  the  draft  army  will  have  an  addi- 
tional period  of  training  in  the  field  by  reason  of 
the  fact  that  the  army  can  not  be  shipped  abroad 
in  bulk,  suddenly."  It  was  necessary  to  attempt 
to  forecast  the  amount  of  time  needed  for  train- 
ing, and  it  was  deemed  wise  to  put  the  men  in  the 
camps  in  order  that  they  might  learn  this  matter 
of  camp  discipline,  camp  sanitation,  the  elements 
and  essentials  of  the  soldiers'  life  a  little  in  ad- 
vance of  their  being  fully  tried  with  arms. 
[263] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

I  have  here  a  statement  of  the  rifles  which  were 
supplied  to  the  camps  at  the  outset.  At  the  be- 
ginning there  were  Krags  in  the  cantonments. 
Senator  Chamberlain  in  his  speech  to  the  Senate 
speaks  of  the  weapons  in  the  possession  of  the 
Department  at  that  time  as  a  motley  collection — 
and  I  have  no  feeling  about  the  phrase.  The  fact 
is  that  what  we  had  was  about  600,000  Spring- 
fields  and  something  over  100,000  Krags. 
Also  this  is  true:  That  in  the  greatest  mili- 
tary establishment  in  the  world,  in  the  Ger- 
man army,  when  they  call  out  raw  recruits  they 
give  them  an  obsolete  rifle  as  a  practice  rifle  until 
the  men  learn  to  take  care  of  it,  before  a  service 
rifle  is  actually  put  in  their  hands.  And  so  as  a 
mere  drilling  and  training  weapon  the  Krag  was 
not  an  improper  weapon  for  them  to  have. 

I  do  not  undertake  to  say,  gentlemen,  that  that 
question  was  decided  infallibly.  It  might  have 
been  better  to  have  bought  English  Enfields 
enough  to  put  one  in  the  hands  of  every  man. 
But  it  was  decided  thoughtfully,  and  it  was  de- 
cided considerately  and  conscientiously,  and  now 
the  result  is  that  every  man  in  this  country  who 
is  intended  to  carry  a  rifle  in  any  of  our  military 
camps,  has  a  rifle,  and  it  is  a  better  rifle  than 
he  would  have  had  if  we  had  adopted  any  one  of 
the  types  existing  at  the  time. 

And  this  additional  thing  is  true,  that  although 
we  have  transported  soldiers  to  Europe  much 
more  rapidly  than  it  was  originally  imagined  we 
[264] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

either  would  or  could,  every  soldier  who  has  gone 
to  Europe  has  had  a  modern,  excellent  rifle,  and 
he  has  had  it  long  enough  before  going  into  ac- 
tion with  it  to  learn  how  to  use  it,  to  practice 
with  it  either  there  or  here.  The  same  observa- 
tion is  true  of  every  soldier  who  will  go  to  Europe. 

May  I  say  now  a  word  about  machine  guns  ? 

The  machine  gun,  of  course,  is  a  highly  tech- 
nical weapon.  It  is  in  the  record  of  testimony 
before  your  committee  that  up  to  April  of  1917 
no  Lewis  gun  had  been  made  and  tested  to  dem- 
onstrate its  utility  for  American  ammunition. 
The  machine-gun  problem  is  complicated  by  two 
factors,  first  the  question  of  manufacture,  and, 
second,  a  difference  in  theory  as  to  the  use  of 
machine  guns. 

When  this  war  broke  out  Great  Britain  was 
manufacturing  the  Vickers-Maxim,  a  heavy,  wa- 
ter-cooled gun.  She  wanted  a  lighter  type  of 
gun  and  adopted  as  her  lighter  type  the  Lewis, 
manufacturing  it  on  a  very  large  scale  in  Eng- 
land. 

The  French,  however,  have  not  used  the  Lewis, 
or  any  corresponding  weapon,  as  a  land  operating 
gun  in  any  large  numbers,  the  French  theory  be- 
ing that  it  is  better  to  have  a  very  light  gun  shot 
from  the  hip  or  the  shoulder,  like  the  Chauchat, 
and  a  heavy  type  of  gun  shot  from  a  tripod  or 
carriage,  like  the  Hotchkiss.  So  that  something 
depended  upon  the  troops  with  which  we  were  to 
fight,  the  theory  of  combat  which  we  were  to 
[265] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

adopt,  as  affecting  the  type  of  machine  gun  we 
should  select. 

There  was  in  existence  a  board  which  had  been 
appointed  nearly  a  half  year  before — certainly 
some  months  before — to  test  all  the  machine  guns 
there  were,  both  those  which  were  previously 
known  through  use  and  those  which  were  not,  in 
order  that  we  might  select  the  best  types.  The 
existence  of  that  board  did  not  delay  for  one  sec- 
ond the  selection  or  the  procurement  of  addi- 
tional machine  guns.  There  was  a  test  made  by 
the  Navy,  I  think,  in  April,  as  a  result  of  which 
it  was  shown  that  the  Lewis  gun  had  been  per- 
fected to  use  American  ammunition.  There  was 
an  ordnance  officer  of  the  Army  present  at  that 
test,  and  on  the  basis  of  that  test  immediate 
orders  were  given  to  the  Savage  Arms  Co.  to  pro- 
cure Lewis  guns. 

But  we  learned  from  Gen.  Pershing  in  Europe 
that  he  does  not  desire  Lewis  guns  for  use 
on  land.  The  regiments  of  marines  which  went 
from  this  country  as  a  part  of  our  military  force 
were  armed  with  Lewis  guns.  The  guns  have 
been  retired  from  service,  and  those  regiments 
have  been  rearmed  with  Chauchat  rifles  and 
Hotchkiss  machine  guns,  just  as  are  our  other 
land  forces. 

Under  the  studies  made  by  the  experts  of  Gen. 
Pershing's  staff  and  by  their  direction  and  ad- 
vice to  us,  we  are  instructed  to  retain  Lewis 
guns  for  use  in  aircraft,  and  are  to  press  forward 
[266] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

as  rapidly  as  we  can  the  manufacture  of  light  and 
heavy  Browning  guns  and  Vickers-Maxim  guns, 
for  which  a  very  large  order  was  outstanding 
almost  immediately  after  an  appropriation  by 
Congress  a  year  ago  to  press  those  forward.  So 
the  situation  in  regard  to  machine  guns  at  pres- 
ent is  that  the  kind  of  weapons  which  Gen.  Per- 
shing  and  his  staff  want  is  the  kind  which  was 
developed  as  the  result  of  that  board's  inquiry, 
and  the  particular  weapon  which  is  said  to 
have  made  so  great  a  success  with  the  British, 
and  doubtless  has  made  a  great  success  with  them, 
is  one  which  is  determined  by  our  experts  to  be 
appropriate  for  air  service  and  not  desired  for 
land-operating  troops. 

In  the  meantime,  in  order  that  the  whole  story 
may  be  told,  it  is  in  testimony  before  your  com- 
mittee that  the  French  Government  is  able  to 
supply  us  with  Chauchat  rifles,  or  light  guns,  and 
Hotchkiss  guns,  or  heavy  guns,  for  the  divisions 
and  troops  which  we  can  this  year  send  abroad. 

We  ordered  every  Lewis  gun  we  could  get,  we 
encouraged  the  manufacturers  to  enlarge  their 
facilities.  They  still  have  not  enlarged  these  as 
much  as  we  have  urged  them  to  and  contracted 
with  them  to  that  end.  The  supply  of  their 
guns  is  going  through  in  larger  numbers,  how- 
ever, and  in  the  meantime  the  making  of  the  nec- 
essary machine  tools  and  jigs  and  dies  for  the 
production  of  light  and  heavy  Brownings,  and 
expediting  the  production  of  Vickers-Maxims,  is 
[267] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

going  forward.  Our  army  abroad  is  provided 
with  guns  of  the  type  adapted  to  the  mode  of 
warfare  which  its  experts  have  elected  to  use, 
and  our  supply  which  is  to  supplement  those  guns 
is  of  the  same  type  and  of  the  kind  desired  by 
them. 

Something  has  been  said  about  our  army  in 
this  country  not  having  machine  guns  here  to 
practice  with.  They  have  not  had  as  many  as 
we  desired  them  to  have ;  and  yet  I  have  had  from 
camp  commanders  many  letters,  saying  that  they 
have  not  been  held  back  by  the  absence  of  these 
weapons,  because  the  rifle  ranges  were  not  ready, 
and  for  one  reason  or  another  they  were  not 
ready  to  go  forward  with  this  practice.  Still,  I 
am  sure  if  they  had  had  machine  guns  at  the 
camps  in  larger  quantities  they  would  have  been 
able  to  have  some  machine-gun  practice  in  most 
of  the  camps  before  this. 

I  have  had  a  table  here,  however,  from  the 
Acting  Chief  of  Ordnance  as  to  the  machine  guns 
which  have  actually  been  distributed  in  the  camps 
in  this  country. 

"The  distribution  of  machine  guns  to  the  na- 
tional draft  camps  has  been  as  follows:  Thirty 
Colt  machine  guns  to  each  camp,  65  Lewis  ma- 
chine guns,  45  Chauchat  automatic  rifles.  Dis- 
tribution of  machine  guns  to  the  National  Army 
cantonments — 50  Colt  guns  each,  65  Lewis  ma- 
chine guns,  45  Chauchat  rifles  to  each  camp. 

"In  addition  to  those  mentioned,  10  Lewis 
[268] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

guns  have  been  issued  to  each  regular  cavalry 
regiment  and  10  Chauchat  rifles  to  each  regular 
infantry  regiment.  Practically  all  of  the  above 
before  the  troops  were  ready  for  them;  that  is, 
about  November  i." 

Now,  frankly,  that  is  not  an  adequate  supply; 
but  it  means  some  machine  guns  with  which  the 
machine  gun  companies  may  practice,  learning 
the  mechanism  and  mechanics  of  these  arms.  A 
larger  supply  will  be  forthcoming  as  the  result  of 
this  quantity  manufacturing  which  has  been  ar- 
ranged for. 

One  other  item  deals  with  cannon.  There  is 
a  statement  on  that  subject  before  this  commit- 
tee, the  statement  made  by  Gen.  Crozier.  I  men- 
tion it  only  because  it  contains  some  documents 
to  which  I  want  to  refer. 

General  Crozier  called  your  attention  to  the 
fact  that  beginning  in  1906 — and  as  I  recall  his 
statement  about  it,  continuously  from  1906  down 
— he  has  argued  with  committees — with  the 
Fortifications  Committee,  the  Military  Affairs 
Committee — as  to  the  length  of  time  it  takes  to 
make  heavy  cannon. 

I  have  no  criticism  to  make  of  the  response  of 
the  Congress  to  his  representations.  Congress 
did  what  it  seemed  wise  at  the  time  to  do,  and  I 
have  not  the  least  doubt  that  if  I  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  this  committee  or  any  committee  of  Con- 
gress I  would  have  been  just  as  likely  as  they 
[269] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

were  to  take  the  view  which  they  took  of  his 
recommendations.  And  yet  continuously  from 
1906,  the  expert  of  the  Army  on  that  question 
was  saying  to  the  Secretary  of  War  and  to  the 
Congress — and  the  Secretaries  of  War  have 
changed  both  in  person  and  in  political  affiliation, 
if  that  amounts  to  anything,  several  times  since 
those  original  recommendations  were  made — 
General  Crozier  was  saying  to  you  and  to  us  that 
it  takes  a  long  time  to  make  artillery,  that  artil- 
lery is  getting  to  be  a  weapon  of  increasing  im- 
portance and  was  urging  that  there  be  ample  pro- 
vision for  a  more  rapid  completion  of  the  pro- 
gram laid  down  in  the  Treat  Board  report. 

General  Crozier  said  in  1912,  for  instance,  or 
somebody  asked  him  this  question: 

"Does  it  take  a  long  time  to  manufacture  these 
field  guns? 

"A.  Yes. 

"Q.  How  long  does  it  take? 

"A.  I  do  not  think  we  could  count  on  getting 
a  battery  delivered  in  less  than  a  year  from  the 
time  the  order  was  given.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  it  would  take  a  year  for  each  battery,  but 
deliveries  would  not  begin  until  a  year  after  the 
order  was  given. 

"Q.  It  is  very  important,  then,  to  have  them  on 
hand? 

"A.  Yes,  it  is  the  slowest  manufactured  of  any 
of  the  fighting  material  we  need." 

I  shall  not  recall  further  the  statements  of  the 
[270] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

general.  They  are  supported  by  extracts  from  his 
testimony,  his  reports,  and  his  letters  to  you  and 
to  me  and  to  my  predecessors,  and  they  show  that 
Gen.  Crozier  realized  the  slowness  with  which 
that  sort  of  arm  could  be  produced,  and  was  con- 
stantly urging  that  ampler  production  be  made  of 
it.  And  yet,  even  Gen.  Crozier  could  not  have 
realized,  and  it  did  not  lie  in  anybody's  imagina- 
tion to  realize,  the  importance  which  artillery  has 
assumed  in  this  war.  The  wars  prior  to  this  have 
been  evolutions  of  large  forces  over  great  areas. 
This  has  finally  reduced  itself  to  a  bitterly  con- 
tested line,  with  the  massing  of  heavy  guns  on 
both  sides.  Even  the  French  did  not  realize  the 
new  development  in  this  war  until  after  it  had 
begun. 

I  have  a  letter  before  me  from  Mr.  Tardieu, 
and  perhaps  I  may  be  permitted  to  read  it.  It 
is  written  to  Mr.  Baruch  and  not  to  me.  You 
will  find  here  a  few  figures  and  further  informa- 
tion concerning  which  I  told  you  the  other  day. 
When  war  began  France  had  at  her  disposal  guns 
of  artillery  caliber  about  89  millimeters,  or  3.8 
inches,  and  of  these  only  140  were  quick-firing 
— that  is,  really  adapted  to  modern  warfare.  Only 
272  of  these  guns,  with  their  personnel,  were  or- 
ganized in  regiments  with  supply  available  on  the 
battlefield.  The  balance  were  located  in  fort- 
resses and  fixed  emplacements.  There  was  first 
a  period  during  which  the  activity  of  the  French 
war  ministry  in  regard  to  heavy  artillery  was 
[271] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

limited  to  the  equipment  and  formation  into  bat- 
teries of  heavy  fortress  artillery.  It  was  an  error, 
as  modern  warfare  requires  quick-firing  heavy 
artillery,  but  as  everybody  was  convinced  of  the 
short  duration  of  the  war,  it  was  wrongly  thought 
that  it  was  not  necessary  to  start  with  the  manu- 
facture of  quick-firing,  modern  ordnance. 

It  has  been  seen  since  that  this  policy  was 
wrong,  although  one  ought  not  to  forget  that  the 
most  important  industrial  regions  of  France  were 
occupied  by  the  enemy.  The  orders  placed  for 
heavy,  quick-firing  ordnance  have  been  sched- 
uled. .  .  . 

I  shall  not  read  that  schedule,  but  I  will  read 
the  dates  when  France  gave  orders  for  heavy, 
quick-firing  artillery.  France,  the  very  center  of 
the  conflict,  with  her  enemy  at  her  throat,  with 
the  demonstration  that  the  massing  of  heavy  ar- 
tillery was  ultimately  to  determine  the  integrity 
of  the  Hindenburg  line,  gave  orders  for  this  type 
of  artillery  in  September  and  December,  1914, 
and  January,  April,  September,  October,  and  De- 
cember, 1915,  and  in  January,  1916,  and  the  larg- 
est order  she  gave  on  any  of  those  dates,  except 
one,  was  the  latest  order  given  in  January,  1916, 
after  the  war  had  progressed  substantially  a  year 
and  a  half. 

To  return  to  our  own  situation :  We  had  a  lim- 
ited amount  of  artillery.  The  first  step  taken  by 
the  War  Department  was  to  attempt  to  speed  up 
the  artillery  which  we  already  had  in  process  of 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

manufacture.  Here  again,  however,  we  came  in 
conflict  or  came  into  contact  with  two  theories 
of  the  use  of  artillery.  The  French  use  very 
large  quantities  of  the  75-millimeter  type.  Their 
barrage  is  made  by  enormous  quantities  of  75- 
millimeter  fire.  The  British  had  a  field  howitzer 
of  larger  caliber  for  that  effect. 

There  are  two  distinct  theories  of  the  use  of 
artillery  on  that  front.  The  British  prefer 
theirs,  the  French  prefer  theirs.  We  did  not 
know  then  the  relative  merits  of  either.  We  had 
reports  from  our  observers;  we  had  experts' 
opinions,  but  now  we  had  reached  a  place  where 
we  had  to  choose  for  ourselves — not  to  make  a 
speculative  and  philosophical  judgment  as  to  the 
relative  excellence  of  two  military  theories,  but 
to  select  arms  for  an  army  that  was  going  to 
fight  for  its  life. 

As  I  shall  show  in  a  moment,  our  attempt  to 
do  that  was  by  sending  over  to  France  the  ablest 
men  we  had,  to  determine  the  choice  on  the 
ground  in  consultation  with  men  who  were  mak- 
ing and  using  these  different  types  of  weapons. 
In  the  meantime  we  allowed  no  hindrance  to  be 
proposed  in  attempting  to  speed  up  the  produc- 
tion of  our  practical  types  of  weapons. 

But  very  early,  perhaps  in  June,  it  was  inti- 
mated to  us  that  the  French  had  so  far  accelerated 
their  industry,  in  order  to  procure  their  initial 
supply,  that  the  wastage  of  their  use  would  not 
consume  or  occupy  their  industrial  capacity,  and 
[373] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

that  therefore  it  would  be  possible  for  them  to 
supply  such  troops  as  we  could  get  to  France, 
within  limits,  with  artillery  of  their  manufacture 
and  of  the  kind  they  were  using.  That  question 
was  very  actively  taken  up  at  once. 

Mr.  Tardieu  was  here.  He  had  for  eight 
months,  I  think  he  said  in  his  letter,  been  con- 
nected with  munitions  production  in  France;  he 
knew  the  subject.  General  Crozier  and  he  had 
many  conferences  about  it,  and  on  the  I4th  of 
July,  or  perhaps  the  I3th,  an  agreement  was 
reached  whereby  the  French  Government  under- 
took to  supply  us  with  quantities  of  the  two  prin- 
cipal pieces  used,  according  to  their  theory  of  ar- 
tillery use,  namely,  the  75-millimeter  field  guns 
and  the  1 55-millimeter  rapid-fire  howitzers.  Mr. 
Tardieu  wrote  at  that  time  an  announcement 
to  the  French  people  of  what  had  been  done.  It 
appears  in  translation  in  Gen.  Crozier's  testi- 
mony. 

Mr.  Tardieu  said: 

"The  negotiations  taken  up  for  the  first  time 
at  the  end  of  May  between  Monsieur  Andre  Tar- 
dieu, the  French  High  Commissioner,  the  Chief 
of  War  Munitions  of  the  High  Commission,  and 
Gen.  Crozier,  Chief  of  Ordnance,  were  charac- 
terized by  two  ideas.  On  the  one  hand  the  Amer- 
ican Government  wished  to  adopt  the  quickest 
solution  in  order  to  realize  in  the  shortest  time 
the  complete  armament  of  its  forces ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  with  great  foresight  they  attached 
[174J 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

particular  importance  to  realizing  uniformity  of 
munitions  for  the  American  and  French  Armies, 
called  to  fight  on  the  same  battlefields." 

I  shall  not  read  the  statement  in  full,  but  the 
paragraph  which  I  shall  now  read  I  think  is 
significant : 

''The  dominant  note  of  the  agreement  lies  in 
the  proof  it  gives  of  the  unshakable  resolution  of 
the  American  Government  to  achieve  in  the  short- 
est time  the  maximum  of  military  strength,  and 
on  the  other  hand  it  proves  the  active  and  inti- 
mate cooperation  existing  between  the  United 
States  and  France." 

I  leave  out  the  next  statement. 

"The  Secretary  of  War  and  Gen.  Crozier, 
Chief  of  Ordnance  of  the  American  Government, 
have  giren  proof  in  this  case  of  the  broadest 
spirit  of  comprehension  and  decision  and  have 
succeeded  in  a  few  weeks  in  securing  for  the 
American  troops  artillery  of  the  first  order." 

Now,  at  the  time  this  statement  was  made,  it 
was  the  confident  expectation  of  everybody  in 
this  country  that  the  sending  of  troops  in  large 
numbers  to  France  was  a  thing  in  the  somewhat 
remote  future.  That  was  in  July.  We  were 
already  sending  troops,  but  the  sending  of  armies 
rapidly  had  not  then  been  as  fully  worked  out  as 
it  has  become  since. 

There  is  in  the  testimony  before  this  committee 
a  telegram  from  Gen.  Bliss.  When  the  so-called 
House  Mission  went  abroad,  Gen.  Bliss,  Chief  of 
[275] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

Staff,  representing  the  Army,  and  Admiral  Ben- 
son, representing  the  Navy,  were  members.  The 
task  of  the  Mission  was  to  find  out  by  conference 
with  the  French  and  British  and  Italians,  and 
their  military  experts,  an  answer  to  this  question : 
How  can  America  contribute  most  to  the  early 
winning  of  this  war? 

One  of  the  answers  to  that  question  which  they 
brought  back,  and  telegraphed  it  before  they 
came,  was  that  the  more  rapid  expedition  of 
troops  to  Europe  was  an  important  factor,  and 
they  asked  at  once  of  their  associates  in  confer- 
ence, "What  about  further  supplies  of  artillery 
and  artillery  ammunition?"  And  there,  in  the 
high  military  councils  of  those  two  nations,  the 
matter  was  discussed,  and  it  was  agreed  that  both 
Great  Britain  and  France  had  surplus  ordnance, 
surplus  ordnance  ammunition,  and  surplus  ord- 
nance ammunition  capacity;  that  Great  Britain 
was  in  exactly  the  same  state  that  France  was. 
In  order  rapidly  to  equip  her  great  army  she  had 
built  up  quantity  production  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  wastage  of  war  and  the  necessary  aug- 
mentation of  ordnance  and  ordnance  ammunition 
would  not  exhaust  her  capacity,  and  therefore  it 
was  agreed  by  these  international  military  ex- 
perts that  "the  representatives  of  Great  Britain 
and  France" — this  is  a  telegram  from  Gen.  Bliss 
in  December — "state  that  their  production  of  ar- 
tillery, field,  medium  and  heavy,  is  now  estab- 
lished on  so  large  a  scale  that  they  are  able  to 
[276] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

equip  completely  all  American  divisions  as  they 
arrive  in  France  during  the  year  1918  with  the 
best  make  of  British  and  French  guns  and  howit- 
zers. With  a  view,  therefore,  to  expediting  and 
facilitating  the  equipment  of  the  American  armies 
in  France  and,  second,  to  securing  the  maximum 
ultimate  development  of  the  munitions  supply 
with  the  minimum  strain  upon  available  tonnage, 
the  representatives  of  Great  Britain  and  France 
propose  that  the  field,  medium,  and  heavy  artil- 
lery be  supplied  during  1918  and  as  long  after  as 
may  be  found  convenient  from  British  and  French 
gun  factories." 

I  have  seen,  gentlemen,  in  the  newspapers, 
statements  that  this  taking  of  ammunition  from 
France  is  putting  her  to  a  greater  effort  than  she 
ought  to  undertake.  I  say  to  you  that  Gen.  Joffre 
and  his  associates  who1  were  here;  Mr.  Tar- 
dieu,  the  French  High  Commissioner ;  the  British 
representative,  Gen.  Bridges,  and  his  associates, 
when  they  were  here — I  don't  remember  whether 
I  spoke  with  Lord  Northcliffe  on  this  subject  or 
not — but  all  of  the  persons  who  have  come  to  this 
country  with  any  knowledge  on  that  subject ;  and 
Gen.  Bliss,  who  went  to  Europe  to  study  that 
subject  on  the  ground;  all  bring  me  the  confident 
and  positive  assurance  that  we  are  not  only  not 
taking  from  France  and  Great  Britain  things 
which  they  need,  but  that  we  are  helping  them  to 
maintain  their  processes ;  that  we  are  using  facili- 
ties which  they  had  organized  in  order  to  meet 
[277] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

a  need;  and  that  we  are  making  a  properly  co- 
ordinated and  cooperative  effort  of  a  military 
character  with  our  allies  in  this  war  by  this 
procedure. 

Yet  we  have  not  stopped  there.  Looking  ahead, 
we  have  organized  increased  capacity  in  this 
country.  The  schedule  of  deliveries  of  artillery 
in  this  country  which  is  before  your  commit- 
tee and  which  I  will  be  very  glad  to  leave  with  the 
committee  for  examination,  I  should  not  like  to 
have  appear  as  a  part  of  this  public  statement,  but 
the  committee  may  have  it.  I  will  read  figures 
which  it  will  not  be  unwise  to  read.  They  show 
the  production  of  mobile  artillery ;  they  show  our 
prospective  procurements  from  France,  and  cover 
the  year  1918.  At  the  outset,  in  the  month  of 
January,  out  of  the  75  mm.  field  pieces,  we  got 
620  from  France,  and  there  have  been  turned  out 
of  our  own  factories  only  84.  In  April  our  own 
production  rises  to  231,  and  the  French  has 
dwindled  to  73.  In  succeeding  months  our  num- 
bers increase  until  in  the  month  of  December, 
1918,  our  own  production  of  that  piece  is  fore- 
casted to  be  433  pieces. 

I  have  here  on  this  table  the  figures  for  3-inch 
and  aircraft  guns,  4.7  guns  of  American  manu- 
facture, 155  mm.  howitzers  of  United  States 
manufacture,  beginning  with  one  in  January, 
1918 — only  nine  months  after  the  declaration  of 
war.  So  far  as  this  matter  of  the  manufacture 
of  the  howitzers  is  concerned,  involving  so  much 
[278] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

time,  by  the  testimony  of  all  experts,  it  is  rising 
steadily  and  rapidly  to  a  maximum  of  300  per 
month  in  December,  1918.  This  gun,  also,  shows 
original  procurement  from  the  French  and  di- 
minishing supplies  from  them  with  rising  produc- 
tion on  our  own  part.  The  8-inch,  9.2  and  9.5 
howitzers  of  American  manufacture  and  those 
procured  in  England  are  all  shown  on  this  chart. 

I  think,  gentlemen,  that  it  is  fair  to  say — and 
if  there  be  a  possibility  that  I  am  wrong  about  it 
I  should  like  to  have  it  called  to  my  attention,  so 
that  I  may  make  no  statement  here  which  is  not 
wholly  borne  out  by  the  facts — that  the  American 
army  in  France  now  and  to  be  there,  large  as  it 
now  is  and  larger  as  it  is  soon  to  be,  is  being  pro- 
vided with  artillery  of  the  types  the  men  want  for 
the  uses  to  which  they  are  to  put  them,  as  rapidly 
as  they  can  use  the  artillery;  and  that  our  own 
stream  of  manufacture,  to  supplement  our  pur- 
chases abroad,  is  in  process;  and  deliveries  of 
some  pieces  are  already  begun,  with,  so  far  as 
industrial  forecast  can  be  relied  upon,  a  rising 
and  steadily  increasing  stream  of  American 
production. 

In  addition  to  what  I  have  said,  gentlemen,  I 
will  read  what  is  already  before  you,  a  statement 
made  by  Mr.  Tardieu  in  a  letter  to  General  Cro- 
zier.  This  was  a  letter  of  December  21. 

"Even  in  such  remarkable  technical  conditions 
as  these,  it  takes  time  to  realize  such  a  pro- 
gram, to  organize  manufactures,  and  to  have 
[279] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

men  to  direct  them.  You  will  take  less  time  than 
We  did  in  France,  where  the  output  of  field  guns 
tvas  not  adequate  to  our  needs  before  the  end  of 
1916." 

Now,  if  I  may  supplement  that  with  one  or  two 
other  figures  from  this  same  report  of  Gen. 
Crozier : 

"The  British  Government  in  this  country 
placed  orders  for  ammunition  and  ordnance  of  all 
kinds  totaling  $1,308,000,000,  extending  from 
about  the  middle  of  August,  1914,  to  the  middle 
of  July,  1917,  or  over  a  period  of  about  three 
years.  In  comparison  with  this  our  own  Ord- 
nance Department  has  placed  orders  for  63,000,- 
ooo  shell" — I  leave  the  odd  figures  out — "of  a 
total  value  approximately  of  a  billion  dollars,  be- 
tween the  middle  of  May  and  the  middle  of  De- 
cember, 1917,  or  over  a  period  of  seven  months." 

In  comparison  with  the  total  munitions  and 
ordnance  purchases  of  the  British  Government 
in  this  country  in  the  period  of  about  three  years 
of  $1,308,000,000,  the  Ordnance  Department  has 
placed  contracts  for  a  total  of  $1,500,000,000  in 
seven  months. 

When  this  war  broke  out  Great  Britain  was  not 
prepared  for  it.  She  immediately  began  not 
only  to  organize  her  own  industries,  but  to  use 
every  facility  in  a  neutral  country  which  she 
could  lay  her  hands  on  to  produce  ordnance  and 
ordnance  ammunition. 

She  had,  as  you  know,  Mr.  Stettinius  as  a  rep- 
[280] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

resentative  here,  an  American  representing  her, 
and  he  has  won  deservedly  a  great  reputation  be- 
cause of  the  masterly  way  in  which  he  rapidly 
evoked  in  this  country  agencies  for  the  creation  of 
ordnance  and  ordnance  ammunition. 

When  Great  Britain  was  placing  these  orders 
she  was  placing  all  she  could  place.  What  she 
wanted  was  ordnance  and  ordnance  ammunition 
in  large  quantities  and  in  a  hurry.  So  it  is  fair 
to  assume  that  in  addition  to  her  own  capacity 
for  manufacture,  she  was  getting  from  us  at  the 
same  time  at  least  the  major  part  of  what  we  were 
deemed  capable  of  producing. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  that  is  a  necessary 
conclusion,  but  everybody  knows  the  urgency  of 
Great  Britain's  need,  and  everybody  who  kept 
track  of  it  at  the  time  knows  that  the  factories  in 
this  country  which  had  made  plows;  and  facto- 
ries, which  had  made  cash  registers ;  and  factories 
which  had  made  adding  machines;  and  factories 
devoted  to  all  sorts  of  standard  industrial  uses  of 
one  sort  and  another ;  were  gotten  together  under 
the  spur  of  that  impulse  and  devoted  to  the  manu- 
facture of  ordnance  and  ordnance  ammunition. 

When  we  came  into  the  field  we  came,  it  is 
true,  into  a  field  where  some  experience  had  been 
acquired  by  American  manufacturers  in  the  man- 
ufacture of  ordnance  and  ordnance  supplies,  but 
at  the  same  time  we  came  into  a  field  in  part  pre- 
empted and  occupied  by  our  allies ;  and  our  prob- 
lem, so  far  as  the  Ordnance  Department  was  con- 
[281] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

cerned,  was  not  merely  to  commandeer  right  and 
left  the  facilities  in  this  country  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  ordnance  and  let  the  British  and  the 
French  take  care  of  themselves.  They  were  on 
the  fighting  line,  and  our  necessity  was  to  dove- 
tail our  program  into  theirs  in  such  a  way  as 
not  to  weaken  their  strength  while  we  were  build- 
ing up  our  own  to  come  to  their  assistance ;  so  that 
our  industrial  problem,  while  obviously  aided  by 
the  experience  which  our  manufacturers  have 
gained  in  the  manufacture  of  ordnance  and  ord- 
nance supplies,  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
so  very  much  of  the  very  best  talent  in  the  coun- 
try was  already  devoted  to  their  program  and 
for  uses  which  could  not  be  diverted  or  suspended. 

I  will  now  take  up  a  comment  which  appeared 
in  your  address,  Mr.  Chairman,  referring  to  the 
supply  of  clothing  under  the  Quartermaster  Gen- 
eral's department.  It  is  perfectly  true,  and  I 
thought  I  agreed  with  you  about  it  when  I  was 
before  you  before,  that  the  supply  of  clothing  was 
inadequate.  If  I  did  not  then  agree  to  that  fact 
it  was  only  because  it  was  so  obvious  that  an  ex- 
plicit statement  of  agreement  did  not  arise  out  of 
the  form  in  which  the  questions  and  answers 
were  made. 

I  said  to  you,  I  feel  quite  sure  at  that  time, 
that  our  initial  rush  needs  were  substantially  pro- 
vided for  and  that  reserves  would  rapidly  accu- 
mulate, and  I  supplied  to  the  committee  all  I  could 
[282] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

get — tabulated  statements,  with  the  exact  num- 
ber of  garments  short  in  every  camp.  When  you 
asked  me  about  Camp  Sherman  and  I  telegraphed 
out  there  and  got  a  message  which  was  reassuring 
in  character,  and  the  next  day  got  a  correction 
which  showed  not  so  good  a  condition,  I  sent  the 
second  message  to  you  before  it  was  cold  from 
the  telegraph  wire. 

I  think  you  thought,  Senator,  that  I  was  to 
blame  for  that.  I  wanted  the  Senator  and  the 
committee  to  have  all  the  information  I  could  get 
and  I  sent  it  without  reservation,  as  I  shall  do  in 
the  future  in  response  to  any  request  that  the 
committee  makes. 

I  have  already  said  to  you  that  at  the  outset  we 
had  the  problem  as  to  whether  we  should  wait 
until  we  had  an  adequate  supply  of  clothing,  or 
whether  we  should  not. 

In  large  part,  I  think  the  responsibility  for  that 
decision  rests  with  me  personally.  The  best  in- 
formation I  could  get  then,  and  the  best  informa- 
tion I  have  now  is  that  it  takes  somewhere  be- 
tween nine  and  twelve  months  to  teach  men  who 
have  not  had  previous  experience,  to  live  in 
camps,  to  learn  the  discipline  and  life  of  soldiers, 
so  that  they  can  be  safely  sent  into  the  kind  of 
warfare  now  waged. 

I  did  not  then  know,  nor  do  I  now  know,  nor 

can  I  know,  how  rapidly  it  may  be  necessary  for 

us  to  send  men  to  France.     I  know  how  rapidly 

we  have  sent  them.     I  know  how  many  are  there. 

[283] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

I  know  what  our  present  plan  is  in  sending  them ; 
but  I  do  not  know  but  that  to-morrow — this  has 
not  happened — I  do  not  know  but  that  to-morrow 
it  might  turn  out  that  it  would  be  wise  to  double 
the  rate  at  which  we  are  sending  troops.  There 
are  now  in  the  United  States  16  National  Guard 
camps,  1 6  National  Army  camps,  filled  with  men 
who  are  ready  to  go  if  it  is  necessary.  I  have 
sacrificed  something  for  that.  I  have  not  will- 
ingly sacrificed  the  health  of  anybody.  I  have 
not  intended  to  sacrifice  the  comfort  of  anybody; 
but  I  have  intended,  if  it  was  humanly  possible, 
to  be  ready  when  the  call  came;  and  if  I  were  to 
have  delayed  the  calling  out  of  these  troops  until 
the  last  button  was  on  the  last  coat,  and  the  call 
had  come  in  November,  or  December  or  January, 
"Send  them  and  send  them  fast,"  and  they  were 
still  at  home  waiting  for  tailors,  I  would  have  felt 
a  crushing  load  of  guilt  and  responsibility  which, 
at  least  in  comparison  with  what  I  do  feel  about 
having  called  them  out,  would  have  been  incom- 
parably greater. 

And  yet  I  was  not  callous  about  it.  I  asked 
those  agencies  with  which  we  were  dealing  in  this 
matter  how  fast  we  could  expect  these  supplies. 
They  gave  me  the  forecast  as  to  the  future.  They 
relied  upon  their  estimate  of  production  and  I  re- 
lied upon  it.  Men  who  were  called  upon  to  take 
contracts  for  the  production  of  cloth  and  the 
making  of  garments,  not  unnaturally  perhaps, 
overestimated  their  capacity  for  production.  Here 
[284] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

and  there  were  some  little  labor  difficulties — not 
many— the  response  of  labor  to  this  situation  has 
been  superb  in  the  United  States.  Here  and 
there  were  difficulties  of  transportation  and  de- 
lays in  getting  supplies  from  one  place  to  another ; 
accumulating  congestions  upon  the  railroads,  de- 
laying manufacture  and  shipment  from  one  place 
to  another;  unprecedented  weather  conditions  in 
the  United  States,  a  winter  the  like  of  which  none 
of  us  has  seen  since  we  were  children. 

The  result  was  that  in  many  of  these  camps 
there  were  shortages  of  coats,  there  were  short- 
ages of  overcoats,  and  perhaps  in  a  minor  degree 
of  some  other  things,  and  at  the  very  outset  a 
shortage  of  blankets,  which  was  quickly  supplied 
by  going  into  the  civilian  market  and  buying  com- 
forters here  and  blankets  there  of  a  non-uniform 
type. 

The  reports  I  have  now  are,  and  the  reports 
for  some  time  have  been,  that  the  quantity  of 
woolen  underwear  in  the  camps  is  adequate,  that 
the  supply  of  heavy  cotton  khaki  is  adequate.  For 
some  weeks  now  we  have  had  an  adequate  supply 
of  overcoats.  The  supply  of  coats  is  approach- 
ing adequacy,  almost  without  exception — I  say 
"almost,"  because  I  have  not  had  time  to  read 
all  the  reports — but  from  every  camp  which  I 
have  communicated  with  in  the  last  few  days  the 
report  comes  to  me  that  where  there  are  any 
shortages  of  coats,  and  that  seems  to  be  the  prin- 
cipal item,  there  is  no  such  shortage  as  interferes 
[285] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

either  with  the  safety  or  comfort  of  the  men;  that 
adequate  stocks  of  heavy  woolen  underwear  and 
overcoats  have  protected  the  men  against  actual 
suffering  by  reason  of  the  temporary  deficiency  in 
coats,  but  even  that  temporary  deficiency  is,  for 
the  most  part,  supplied. 

Suppose  I  had  taken  the  other  counsel.  There 
were  two  extreme  alternatives :  Either  we  could 
go  into  this  war  as  nations  used  to  go  into  wars, 
summon  the  countryside  and  assemble  them  into 
camps  and  work  out  their  problems  afterwards, 
which  was  one  suggestion  at  the  time ;  or  we  could 
wait  until  the  last  element  of  preparation  had 
been  made  before  summoning  the  men. 

The  unwisdom,  I  think,  of  either  of  those 
courses  is  obvious.  What  we  tried  to  do — and 
the  responsibility  for  it  I  think  I  must  personally 
accept,  because  I  was  conscious  of  the  grounds 
on  which  it  lay — what  we  tried  to  do,  was  to  sum- 
mon the  men  out  as  rapidly  as  they  could  be  taken 
care  of,  with  the  best  knowledge  we  could  get  of 
the  capacity  of  the  industry  of  this  country.  It 
is  not  unknown  to  any  member  of  this  commit- 
tee that  when  the  draft  army  came  to  be  assem- 
bled we  delayed  the  calling  out  of  its  units 
sometimes  a  couple  of  weeks,  sometimes  more 
than  that,  in  order  that  at  each  camp  no  men 
would  be  received  who  could  not  be  taken  care  of. 
And  the  last  element  of  the  first  687,000  men 
selected  by  draft,  the  last  element  of  those  men 
intended  originally  to  have  come  out  in  November 
[286] 


.WHAT  WE  PIAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

or  December,  will  not  in  fact  report  to  the  camps 
until  the  icjth  of  February  in  order  that  produc- 
tion and  distribution  may  catch  up  and  be  ade- 
quate for  their  entertainment  and  protection  when 
they  come. 

The  fact  is  that  all  of  the  uniform  cloth  of  the 
Army  of  the  United  States  is  made  of  virgin  wool. 
There  is  no  shoddy  in  any  of  it.  There  has  been 
introduced  into  the  cloth  used  for  overcoats  and 
for  blankets  an  admixture  of  reworked  wool,  but 
in  the  uniform  cloth  there  is  no  shoddy,  there 
is  no  reworked  wool ;  it  is  all  virgin  wool.  When 
we  went  into  this  war  the  standard  of  army 
quality  for  uniforms  was  that  it  should  contain 
75  per  cent  wool  and  25  per  cent  cotton.  That 
had  been  our  standard  for  a  long  time,  but  the 
specification  was  changed  and  the  army  uniform 
cloth,  every  yard  of  it,  bought  for  this  war,  is 
virgin  wool  of  the  same  weight  it  has  always 
been,  with  a  large  increase  in  its  strength  in  or- 
der to  give  it  greater  wearing  qualities,  while  the 
use  of  reworked  wool,  or  scraps,  so-called  shoddy, 
is  limited  to  overcoats  and  blankets. 

On  that  subject  I  want  to  read,  if  I  may,  a 
statement  made  by  the  greatest  wool  expert  in 
America  on  that  subject.  My  attention  was 
called  to  it  only  this  morning.  It  is  from  the  is- 
sue of  Commerce  and  Finance  of  January  23, 
1918,  and  is  written  by  Mr.  William  M.  Wood, 
president  of  the  American  Woolen  Company. 
Senator  Weeks  knows  that  I  am  not  stating  it  too 
[287] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

strongly  when  I  say  that  he  is  a  man  of  very  high 
authority  in  the  wool  world.  Mr.  Wood  says 
this: 

"The  recommendation  of  the  Manufacturers' 
Committee  to  the  Council  of  National  Defense 
looking  to  the  utilization  of  reworked  wool  is,  in 
my  opinion,  worthy  of  consideration  and  not  to  be 
disparaged,  as  it  has  been  in  some  quarters.  Re- 
worked wool  can  be  introduced  into  fabrics  which 
are  used  for  overcoats  and  blankets  so  as  to  im- 
prove rather  than  impair  their  usefulness. 

"It  gives  a  better  fitting  property  to  the  cloth, 
makes  a  warmer,  closer,  tighter  fabric,  provided 
a  judicious  proportion  is  used." 

The  Manufacturers'  Committee,  composed  of 
patriotic  and  practical  men,  gave  the  Government 
its  best  judgment,  based  on  the  knowledge  and 
experience  acquired  through  years  of  effort  in 
practical  manufacturing,  in  recommending  the 
judicious  use  of  reworked  wool. 

I  am  willing  to  venture  the  statement  that  in 
the  construction  of  from  90  to  95  per  cent  of  all 
the  overcoatings  made  in  the  world,  including 
some  of  the  finest  fabrics,  there  is  used  a  meas- 
urable quantity  of  reworked  wool,  or  shoddy;  so 
that  the  prejudice  which  appears  to  exist  against 
the  use  of  this  kind  of  raw  material  is  unfounded 
and  unjust  under  modern  conditions  of  manu- 
facture. 

As  confirming  this,  I  may  mention  that  all  the 
heavier  military  cloth  in  this  country  for  export 
[288] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

to  our  Allies  under  specifications  given  by  their 
respective  governments,  contains  a  large  per- 
centage of  reworked  wool. 

In  this  statement  I  am  correcting,  too,  a  mis- 
taken belief  which  I  shared  with  you.  I  had  sup- 
posed that,  on  the  recommendation  of  this  com- 
mittee of  the  American  Woolen  Manufacturers' 
Committee,  a  uniform  cloth  which  had  originally 
been  virgin  wool  was  reduced  to,  first,  65  and  35, 
and  then  50-50,  proportions  of  virgin  wool  and 
reworked  wool. 

Some  question  has  been  raised  as  to  whether 
a  heavier  weight  of  cloth  ought  to  have  been  sup- 
plied in  view  of  the  fact  that  foreign  armies  use 
a  heavier  weight  of  cloth.  I  can  add  nothing  to 
the  testimony  in  the  record  on  that  subject.  That 
testimony,  as  I  understand  it,  is  this,  that  we  have 
retained  the  cloth  specified  for  our  Army  for  a 
long  time,  so  far  as  weight  is  concerned ;  that  by 
the  injection  of  one  hundred  per  cent  of  virgin 
wool  we  have  strengthened  it  and  increased  its 
warmth  and  wearing  capacity,  but  whether  or  not 
a  heavier  cloth  ought  to  be  used  is  yet  to  be  de- 
termined. General  Pershing  was  requested  to 
have  his  experts  in  Europe  investigate  that  point 
and  report  to  us  on  or  before  the  first  of  February 
whether  he  recommended  any  change  in  the  uni- 
form cloth.  That  report  has  not  yet  been  made 
by  General  Pershing  and  his  staff,  nor  has  any 
suggestion  ever  come  from  General  Pershing  or 
his  staff  voluntarily  that  there  should  be  any 
[289] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

heavier  cloth  used  in  the  making  of  our  uniforms. 
I  want  to  make  but  one  further  observation  on 
this  general  subject  of  the  quartermaster  and 
supply  department.  I  think  it  is  not  unfair  for 
me  to  say  that  in  the  matter  of  provision  of  food 
no  army  ever  assembled  anywhere  was  fed  as 
regularly,  as  well,  as  nutritiously,  as  appetizingly 
as  this  army.  I  think  you  gentlemen  of  the  com- 
mittee, and  surely  the  men  in  the  War  Depart- 
ment, will  agree  that  while  there  have  been  com- 
plaints about  other  things,  the  testimony  of  this 
army  so  far  as  I  know  is  unanimous  that  its  food 
has  been  of  the  highest  quality;  that  there  has 
been  no  suggestion  of  defective  quality  or  in- 
sufficiency in  the  quantity;  that  its  preparation 
has  been  of  the  highest  character,  and  generally, 
the  very  great  problem  of  food  supply  for  this 
vast  and  hastily  organized  group  of  men  has  been 
met  with  most  extraordinary  success. 

There  is  some  question  regarding  the  selection 
of  cantonment  sites,  as  to  the  health  fulness  of  the 
sites  selected,  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  the 
Surgeon  General  was  not  consulted  with  regard 
to  the  selection  of  sites. 

The  War  College  Division  of  the  General  Staff 
made  a  study  of  the  mode  of  training  of  the 
Army.  The  date  of  that  is  May  4,  and  the  ques- 
tions they  considered  at  that  time  were,  first: 

"Shall  the  Army  be  assembled  in  regimental 
camps  or  brigade  camps  or  division  camps?" 
[290] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

They  finally  determined  that  it  should  be  in  di- 
vision camps.  They  then  drew  up  a  memoran- 
dum covering  several  pages,  as  to  the  mode  of 
selecting  and  organizing  these  camps.  The  pa- 
per I  have  before  me  is  the  original,  signed  by 
Gen.  Joseph  E.  Kuhn,  then  president  of  the  Army 
War  College.  This  report  recommended,  first, 
that  the  department  commanders  should  be 
charged  with  the  duty  of  making  such  selections 
for  the  troops  to  be  raised  or  trained  within  their 
respective  departments;  and,  second,  that  they 
should  appoint  boards  of  officers  to  investigate 
and  report  upon  the  available  camp  sites. 

Third,  the  number  of  such  boards  in  each  de- 
partment should  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
several  department  commanders.  Each  board 
should  be  composed  of  two  experienced  officers  of 
the  line,  one  of  whom  should,  when  practicable, 
be  the  division  commander  concerned,  or  his  rep- 
resentative; one  of  the  Quartermaster's  Depart- 
ment; one  officer  of  the  Medical  Corps,  and  a  dis- 
trict engineer.  The  requisite  number  of  district 
engineers  selected  for  their  knowledge  of  local 
conditions  should  be  placed  under  the  orders  of 
each  department  commander  for  detail  on  these 
boards. 

The  fourth  paragraph  gives  a  catalogue  of  the 
considerations  which  should  guide  the  department 
commander  and  the  boards  appointed  by  him  in 
the  selection  of  these  sites.  I  will  read  only  two 
or  three  pertinent  ones.  They  should  be  of  suffi- 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

cient  size  to  accommodate  a  command  without 
crowding  and  have  an  adequate  water  supply, 
both  for  the  men  and  animals  to  be  encamped 
thereon.  They  should  be  immune  from  floods 
and  inundations.  The  surroundings  should  be 
healthful.  There  were  other  desirable  features 
recommended,  absence  of  insect  pests  as  disease 
carriers,  infrequent  interruptions  to  training  by 
inclement  weather — in  all  a  long  and  carefully 
prepared  schedule. 

These  guides  were  sent  to  each  department 
commander.  The  principal  places  where  these 
camps  were  to  be  selected  were  the  Department 
of  the  Southeast,  the  Central  Department,  and 
the  Southern  Department.  There  had  been  just 
transferred,  shortly  before  that,  to  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Southeast,  the  senior  major  general 
of  the  army,  Gen.  Wood,  himself  a  medical  officer 
originally,  a  man  who  had  originated  the  train- 
ing-camp idea  and  put  it  into  practice  at  Platts- 
burg  until  it  was  a  demonstrated  success,  a  man 
who,  perhaps,  more  than  any  other  man  in  the 
Army  by  common  consent  would  have  been  recog- 
nized as  the  best  equipped  man  to  select  camp 
sites  and  inaugurate  a  system  of  training  camps. 

In  the  Central  Department  there  was  Gen. 
Barry,  if  I  remember  correctly,  next  in  order — 
perhaps  Gen.  Franklin  Bell  was  his  senior — 
among  the  ranking  major  generals  in  the  Army,  a 
man  with  experience  not  only  in  this  country  but 
in  our  insular  possessions,  a  lifelong  soldier,  a 
[292] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

man  accustomed  to  the  encampment  of  soldiers 
and  the  environment  which  ought  to  surround 
them. 

In  the  Southern  Department,  I  forget  who  was 
in  command.  It  was  of  less  importance  because 
it  had  the  experience  of  the  Border,  and  camp 
sites  had  practically  been  selected,  so  far  as  that 
department  was  concerned. 

These  men  were  directed  to  select  for  recom- 
mendation the  department  camp  sites.  I  am  not 
referring  to  anything  that  is  not  perfectly  known 
to  everybody  who  lives  in  Washington,  but  from 
the  day  that  it  was  known  that  camp  sites  would 
be  selected,  Washington  was  filled  to  overflowing 
with  representative  bodies  of  citizens  desiring 
that  consideration  should  be  given  to  this  site  or 
to  that  site,  pressing  the  advantages  of  particular 
locations  on  us  as  to  their  accessibility  by  railroad 
or  otherwise,  the  character  of  their  climate,  the 
character  of  their  soil.  I  think  I  am  stating  what 
is  known  to  every  one  in  this  room  when  I  say 
that  the  universal  and  unvarying  answer  was  that 
those  camp  sites  were  regarded  as  of  so  grave 
significance,  and  their  proper  selection  was  of  so 
much  importance,  that  the  Department  was  rely- 
ing on  a  board  which  could  actually  visit  and 
compare  on  the  ground  the  relative  conditions, 
and  I  am  stating  what  the  record  shows  when  I 
say  that  the  camp  sites  actually  selected  were  in 
every  instance  recommended  by  the  department 
commander,  his  action  being  based  on  a  board's 
[293] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

action,  the  board  containing  in  every  instance,  so 
far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  the  senior  medical 
officer  of  his  department.  Only  in  one  instance 
was  the  question  raised  as  to  whether  or  not  a 
camp  site,  tentatively  selected,  was  in  itself  a 
healthful  place.  When  that  question  was  raised 
I  asked  the  Surgeon  General  of  the  Army  to  select 
the  most  eminent  and  competent  sanitarian  in  his 
department  and  send  him  to  make  a  personal  in- 
spection of  the  site.  He  came  back  and  reported 
that  the  site  was  a  sanitary  and  healthful  one,  and 
it  was  not  until  that  report  had  been  made  that 
the  site  was  finally  decided  upon. 

The  records  of  the  department  in  addition 
showed  that  upon  the  selection  of  these  sites  the 
Surgeon  General's  Office  was  notified  of  their 
selection.  I  am  not  raising  any  issue  with  the 
Surgeon  General.  I  share  the  high  opinion  of 
his  eminent  talents  and  of  his  great  past  service 
and  capacity  for  future  service  which  this  com- 
mittee entertains,  and  yet  I  want  to  have  it  per- 
fectly understood  that  in  the  selection  of  these 
sites  his  representative  was  a  member  of  every 
board,  and  if  any  question  ever  arose  with  regard 
to  the  propriety  of  a  site  in  process  of  selection 
that  question  was  investigated  under  his  direc- 
tion by  my  order  until  there  was  satisfaction  as  to 
the  propriety  of  the  selection. 

And  now  with  regard  to  the  building  of  can- 
tonments and  the  air  space.  The  plans  for  the 
barracks  and  hospitals  and  buildings  of  these 
[294] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

camps  were  referred  to  the  Surgeon  General 
and  by  him  approved.  I  do  not  remember 
what  the  allotments  of  floor  space  they  made  were 
but  they  were  approved,  and  the  buildings  were  in 
the  process  of  construction  when  there  came  a 
meeting,  I  think,  of  the  American  Medical  Asso- 
ciation, and  at  that  meeting  a  committee  was  ap- 
pointed to  consider  the  sanitary  conditions  and 
character  of  barrack  buildings  for  soldiers.  That 
committee  came  to  Washington  and  conferred 
with  the  Surgeon  General,  as  was  entirely  help- 
ful and  loyal  and  proper  for  it  to  do.  It  in- 
sisted upon  a  larger  allowance,  a  larger  square 
foot  of  floor  space  and  cubical  contents  for  each 
soldier.  In  deference  to  their  advice,  the  Sur- 
geon General  requested  that  a  larger  allowance 
be  made.  At  the  time  that  request  was  made, 
however,  many  barrack  buildings  had  been  con- 
structed, the  whole  system  of  plans  had  been 
made  with  his  previous  approval,  and  the  work 
was  going  on.  I  therefore  asked  Gen.  Gorgas 
to  call  on  me  with  that  committee,  and  I  saw  them 
in  my  office  and  discussed  the  question  with  them. 
I  do  not  remember  all  of  the  persons  who  were 
present  but  I  remember  some  of  them.  There 
was  Gen.  Gorgas,  Dr.  Mayo,  Dr.  Welch  of  the 
Johns  Hopkins  Hospital — I  do  not  recall  others, 
but  there  must  have  been  perhaps  half  a  dozen  or 
eight  of  them,  of  great  distinction  in  the  medical 
profession,  including  Dr.  Franklin  Martin,  of 
[295] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

Chicago,  who  was  chairman  of  the  medical  sec- 
tion of  the  Council  of  National  Defense. 

We  raised  the  question  of  how  much  floor  space 
the  men  ought  to  have,  and  they  suggested  that 
50  feet  was  the  proper  allowance.  Then  it  was 
explained  to  them  that  the  barracks  were  in 
process  of  construction,  and  they  were  asked 
whether  they  felt  that  the  matter  was  so  vital  that 
it  was  wise  to  stop  putting  up  the  buildings  we 
were  then  erecting  and  start  over  again  on  re- 
formed glans,  and  they  said,  No;  they  did  not 
think  so.  They  thought  the  thing  for  us  to  do 
was  to  take  the  minimum  which  they  suggested 
as  an  ideal  toward  which  we  should  build,  and 
that  we  should  ask  Congress  to  permit  us  to  spend 
more  money  putting  additions  to  these  barrack 
buildings,  and  ultimately  get  up  to  this  allowance ; 
but  they  did  not  recommend  that  we  stop  building 
the  barracks  in  order  to  make  the  enlargements 
which  they  suggested. 

That  is  more  or  less  unimportant,  except  as  it 
leads  up  to  another  subject.  I  said  then,  "Gentle- 
men, we  have  now  discussed  cantonments,  perma- 
nent barracks,  more  or  less  permanent  wooden 
barracks.  Now  let  us  talk  about  the  camps,  be- 
cause a  large  part  of  these  soldiers  are  going  to 
be  in  canvas  tents." 

Somebody  said,  and  it  was  evidently  accepted 
as  the  general  opinion,  that  that  subject  need  give 
us  no  trouble.  They  said,  "Tents  are  automatic- 
ally ventilated ;  there  will  be  no  trouble  from  them. 
[296] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

We  wish — we  believe  it  would  have  been  wiser  or 
safer — that  the  plans  provided  for  having  all  the 
men  in  tents  instead  of  having  them  in  camps, 
because  the  tent  is  a  smaller  unit,  which  brings 
fewer  men  together  in  one  place.  It  is  automati- 
cally ventilated  and  we  think  you  need  not  look 
forward  to  any  of  the  problems  arising  from  con- 
gestion in  the  tent  camps."  I  recalled  that  to 
Gen.  Gorgas's  attention  the  other  day  and  he  re- 
membered it  and  said  that  that  was  still  his 
opinion. 

Now  the  fact  is  that  the  more  serious  health 
difficulties  have  broken  out  in  the  camps  that  were 
in  tents  and  the  health  conditions  in  the  canton- 
ments, where  the  gravest  concern  was  felt,  have 
been  better  than  those  where  it  was  felt  that  we 
had  perfect  assurance. 

I  cite  this  not  merely  to  show  that  expert  opin- 
ion may  not  arrive  at  the  correct  solution  of  a 
difficult  problem,  but  so  that  you  may  have  the 
environment  of  that  problem.  Shortly  after  that 
conference  it  turned  out  that  we  would  have  to 
reorganize  all  of  our  divisions,  making  a  larger 
company  by  the  consolidation  of  other  companies, 
and  making  a  larger  regiment.  So  it  became 
possible  in  the  various  camps  to  make  readjust- 
ments in  the  assignments  to  individual  buildings 
and  from  the  beginning,  so  far  as  the  canton- 
ments are  concerned,  there  has  not  been  less  than 
the  minimum  desired  by  this  committee  and  Gen. 
[297] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

Gorgas,  of  assignable  floor  space  and  cubical  con- 
tents. 

For  instance,  the  approved  capacity  of  500  cu- 
bic feet  as  a  basis  applied  to  the  16  cantonments 
produces  these  results:  At  Camp  Devens,  Ayer, 
Mass.,  on  the  basis  of  500  cubic  feet  per  man, 
there  is  room  for  34,476  men.  The  greatest  num- 
ber ever  there  was  34,800,  about  300  too  many. 
In  every  other  one  of  the  16  camps  the  capacity 
of  the  500  cubic  feet  basis  is  greater  than  the 
maximum  number  who  have  ever  been  there.  At 
Camp  Upton,  39,111  capacity,  maximum  number 
29,000  (I  read  only  the  first  figures);  Camp 
Dix,  capacity  39,800,  maximum  number,  20,- 
800;  Camp  Meade,  capacity  38,500,  maximum 
number  32,000;  and  so  on,  clear  through  the  en- 
tire list,  with  the  solitary  exception  of  Camp  De- 
vens, where  the  capacity  on  the  basis  of  500  cubic 
feet  per  man  was  exceeded,  and  that  only  by 
something  over  300  men  at  one  particular  time. 

Regarding  the  number  of  men  to  be  put  in  a 
tent  the  records  of  the  War  Department  show 
that  on  the  isth  of  October  the  War  College  is- 
sued recommendations  as  to  the  manner  of  han- 
dling supplies  in  camps  and  cantonments,  in  which 
the  following  occurs : 

"Heavy  tentage  for  the  National  Guard,  unless 
otherwise  ordered,  and  for  State  organizations 
which  are  to  be  mobilized  at  State  mobilization 
camps,  will  be  shipped  direct  to  training  camps  to 
be  there  apportioned  out  according  to  the  needs  of 
[298] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

all  the  organizations  by  division  or  camp  com- 
manders on  the  basis  of  one  large  pyramidal  tent 
to  12  men  until  the  total  supply  of  tentage  avail- 
able is  increased,  when  distribution  will  be  made 
at  the  rate  of  one  tent  to  9  men." 

That  recommendation,  our  records  show,  had 
the  concurrence  of  the  Surgeon  General.  That  is 
from  the  War  College  minutes!  Later,  when  the 
Surgeon  General  was  making  his  inspection  of 
the  various  camps,  the  number  of  men  per  tent 
was  reduced  from  9  to  5,  as  indicated  in  the  ac- 
tion taken  on  December  i,  in  the  case  of  Camp 
Sevier.  Similar  action  was  taken  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  Surgeon  General  at  the  other 
camps  visited  by  him. 

What  actually  happened,  gentlemen,  was  that 
we  gathered  in  from  the  country  young  men  who 
had  not  been  brought  before  into  contact  with 
community  living.  They  were  young  men  from 
the  sparsely  settled  parts  of  the  country.  They 
were  attacked  by  measles,  of  which  one  of  the 
ordinary  consequences  apparently  in  adults  is 
pneumonia.  Now  I  am  not  a  physician ;  I  would 
simply  be  repeating  what  other  people  say  to  me 
if  I  undertook  to  detail  any  opinions  on  the  sub- 
ject of  pneumonia  or  measles,  and  I  do  not  want 
to  minimize  the  fact  that  in  all  human  likelihood 
the  prevalence  of  pneumonia  in  some  places  and 
of  bronchial  colds  which  lead  to  pneumonia,  per- 
haps even  the  spread  of  measles,  were  caused  by 
too  many  men  being  in  a  tent  at  one  time,  and 
[299] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

facilitated  by  the  shortage  of  clothes  of  the  kind 
that  I  have  previously  described.  And  yet  Gen. 
Gorgas  told  me,  as  I  have  no  doubt  he  told  your 
committee,  that  the  worst  epidemic  of  pneumonia 
he  ever  had  to  deal  with  was  at  the  Panama  Ca- 
nal, where  there  was  not  any  question  of  shortage 
of  clothes  or  change  of  climate. 

But  I  do  extract  from  this  record — this  is,  I 
think,  evidenced  by  it — that  our  original  expecta- 
tion was  that  the  men  in  the  tents  would  be  safe ; 
that  practically  the  only  thing  we  had  to  consider 
there  was  the  convenience  of  the  men  in  getting 
about  in  their  tents ;  and  as  soon  as  it  was  discov- 
ered that  the  boys  by  tying  up  tight  the  flaps 
of  the  tents  and  excluding  the  outside  air  were 
circumventing  that  outside  ventilation,  which  had 
been  counted  upon  so  surely  to  protect  them  from 
the  evil  effects  of  congested  conditions,  just  as 
soon  as  that  was  discovered  by  the  Surgeon  Gen- 
eral, instantly  it  was  suggested  that  the  rate  of 
occupation  of  these  tents  should  be  much  lower, 
additional  tentage  came  in  as  rapidly  as  it  could 
be  sent  in  by  express,  and  those  conditions  were 
improved. 

There  was  a  shortage  of  blankets.  The  mills 
of  the  country  could  not  produce  them  rapidly 
enough,  and  in  some  places — Camp  Devens,  for 
instance — a  very  large  number  of  quilts  was 
bought  in  the  near-by  stores  and  cities  to  supple- 
ment the  supply  of  blankets  until  a  full  supply 
was  possible ;  and  it  may  well  be  if  the  boys  had 
[300] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

had  blankets  enough  to  cover  themselves  com- 
pletely they  would  not  have  made  the  tents  so 
nearly  airtight.  The  point  I  want  to  make,  if  I 
may  make  it  with  propriety,  is  this :  That  the  place 
where  we  least  expected  trouble,  is  the  place  where 
it  came,  not  the  place  where  I  expected  it  nor 
where  it  was  expected  by  the  greatest  and  most 
competent  medical  experts  of  America,  coming 
all  the  way  from  New  York  or  wherever  else  their 
meeting  was,  to  confer  with  the  Surgeon  General. 

The  Surgeon  General  at  the  outset  asked  about 
hospital  facilities  at  the  National  Guard  camps, 
and  it  was  then  thought  that  since  the  men  would 
be  in  those  camps  a  shorter  time  than  the  men  in 
the  cantonments,  and  as  the  cantonments  would 
be  used  by  succeeding  groups  of  men  to  be 
trained,  there  was  not  so  much  need  for  mak- 
ing permanent  hospital  facilities  at  the  National 
Guard  camps  as  at  the  cantonments. 

That  view,  however,  was  changed,  the  Sur- 
geon General's  recommendation  for  hospitals  at 
the  National  Guard  camps  was  approved  and  the 
same  kind  and  size  of  hospital,  the  same  character 
of  facility,  was  then  directed  to  be  put  up  at  the 
National  Guard  camps,  and  is  either  erected  or  is 
being  erected  at  all  of  them.  Gen.  Gorgas  said 
to  me  that  he  himself  approved  the  idea  of  erect- 
ing these  National  Guard  hospitals  without  per- 
manent installation  of  flowing  water,  without 
permanent  sewerage  facilities,  because  at  the  out- 
set it  was  believed  that  they  were  to  be  more  tem- 
[801] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

porary,  but  when  it  was  discovered  that  they  were 
to  be  more  permanent,  then  he  recommended  that 
it  be  altered  to  a  permanent  installation  of  plumb- 
ing and  water  supply,  and  this  change  was  then 
ordered. 

There  were  scattered  through  all  of  these  camps 
the  regimental  hospitals  which  under  normal  cir- 
cumstances would  be  regarded  as  adequate  to  take 
care  of  minor  illnesses  of  the  men,  places  to  which 
they  could  retire  with  a  cold  or  a  slight  injury,  or 
something  of  that  kind.  This  provision  of  base 
hospitals  was  for  the  more  severe  cases.  Of 
course  the  fact  is  that  we  were  overtaken  by  epi- 
demic conditions  before  the  base  hospitals  were 
ready  in  the  National  Guard  camps,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  evacuate  some  of  those  hospitals  and 
take  the  patients  to  other  places.  When  the  Sur- 
geon General  made  his  investigation  and  discov- 
ered that  situation,  just  as  soon  as  adverse  health 
conditions  arose  at  Camp  Wheeler  and  in  those 
other  southern  camps,  his  recommendation  for 
the  transfer  of  patients  was  instantly  approved 
and  carried  into  effect,  and  every  recommenda- 
tion he  made  was  complied  with. 

It  was  at  that  time,  after  his  return  from  this 
inspection,  that  Gen.  Gorgas  suggested  to  me  in 
conversation  the  wisdom  of  having  a  detention 
hospital  where  new  men  coming  to  the  camp  could 
be  placed  for  observation  for  the  normal  period 
of  incubation  of  the  common  contagious  diseases, 
so  that  there  would  not  be  in  the  future  the  chance 
[302] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

of  newly  drafted  men  or  newly  raised  levies 
bringing  in  from  the  outside  contagious  diseases 
and  spreading  them  through  an  assembled  force. 
I  have  been  dealing  with  what  has  seemed  to 
me  to  be  the  details  of  delay.  I  hope  I  have  not 
seemed  to  deny  their  existence.  I  have  tried  to 
add  to  your  information  by  showing  you  exactly 
what  they  are  so  far  as  I  can  learn  them.  I  do  not 
want  to  add  any  color  of  prophecy  as  to  when 
they  will  be  completely  removed.  I  think  you 
know,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  from  the  experts 
at  the  heads  of  these  departments,  just  what  the 
outlook  is  with  regard  to  each  particular  thing, 
and  so  I  turn  aside  to  the  plan  of  the  war. 

I  have  understood  that  Senator  Chamberlain 
felt  that  there  was  not  a  plan  for  this  war.  I  do 
not  know  how  far  the  members  of  the  committee 
feel  that ;  I  do  not  know  how  far  the  country  feels 
that;  but  I  want,  if  I  can,  to  show  to  you  that 
there  is  a  plan ;  that  it  is  the  only  plan  under  the 
circumstances. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  this  war  broke  out 
in  August,  1914.  We  went  into  it  in  April,  1917, 
so  that  for  two  and  one-half  years,  or  more  than 
two  and  one-half  years,  the,  war  had  been  going 
on.  It  was  not  as  though  war  had  broken  out 
between  the  United  States  and  some  country,  each 
of  them  prior  to  that  time  having  been  at  peace 
with  the  other  and  with  everybody  else,  so  that 
an  immediate  plan  could  be  made  in  the  United 
[303] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

States  for  conducting  war  against  its  adversary. 
We  were  coming  into  a  war  which  had  been 
going  on  for  two  and  one-half  years,  in  which  the 
greatest  military  experts,  all  the  inventive  genius, 
all  the  industrial  capacity  of  those  greatest 
countries  in  the  world  had  for  two  and  one-half 
years  been  endeavoring  to  solve  the  problem  of 
what  kind  of  war  it  was  to  be  and  where  it  was 
to  be  waged. 

It  was  not  for  us  to  decide  where  our 
theater  of  war  should  be.  The  theater  of  war 
was  France.  It  was  not  for  us  to  decide  our  line 
of  communications.  Our  line  of  communications 
was  across  3,000  miles  of  ocean,  one  end  of  it  in- 
fested with  submarines.  It  was  not  for  us  to 
decide  whether  we  would  have  the  maneuvering 
of  large  bodies  of  troops  in  the  open.  There  lay 
the  antagonists  on  opposite  sides  of  no-man's  land 
in  the  trenches  at  a  death  grapple  with  one  an- 
other. Our  antagonist  was  on  the  other  side  of 
that  line,  and  our  problem  was  and  is  to  get  over 
there  and  get  him. 

It  was  not  the  problem  of  doing  it  our  way  and 
letting  everybody  else  take  care  of  himself.  In 
the  first  place,  we  were  going  to  fight  in  France, 
not  on  our  own  soil,  and  not  on  our  adversary's 
soil,  and  therefore  at  the  very  beginning  it  was 
obvious  that  the  thing  we  had  to  do  was  not  to 
map  out  an  ideal  plan  of  campaign,  not  to  have 
the  War  College,  with  its  speculative  studies  of 
Napoleon  and  everybody  else,  map  out  the  best 
[304] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

way  theoretically  to  get  at  some  other  country, 
but  it  was  the  problem  of  studying  the  then  exist- 
ing situation  and  bringing  the  financial,  the  in- 
dustrial, and  the  military  strength  of  the  United 
States  into  cooperation  with  that  of  Great  Britain 
and  France  in  the  most  immediate  and  effective 
way. 

That  problem  could  not  be  decided  here.  I 
fancy  in  this  audience  there  are  men  who  have 
been  in  the  trenches.  The  altogether  unprece- 
dented character  of  this  war  is  the  thing 
which  every  returning  visitor  tells  us  can  not  be 
described  in  words,  can  not  be  put  down  in  re- 
ports ;  it  is  a  thing  so  different  from  anything  else 
that  ever  went  on  in  the  world,  so  vast  in  its  deso- 
lation, so  extraordinary  in  its  uniqueness,  that  it 
must  be  seen  and  studied  on  the  ground  in  order 
to  be  comprehended  at  all. 

It  can  readily  be  seen  that  we  might  have  per- 
fected an  army  over  here,  carried  it  across  the 
ocean  and  found  it  wholly  unadapted  to  its  task; 
it  might  well  have  been  that  the  army  that  we 
sent  over  was  just  the  one  thing  that  our  Allies 
did  not  need,  and  that  some  other  thing  which  we 
might  have  supplied  would  have  been  the  thing 
essential  to  their  success. 

So  that  from  the  very  beginning  it  was  not  a 
question  of  abstract  speculation  here,  but  a  ques- 
tion of  study  there  to  find  out  where  our  shoulder 
could  be  put  to  the  wheel. 

Our  Allies  realized  that.  And  so  Great  Britain 
[305] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

sent  over  to  us  Mr.  Balfour  and  Gen.  Bridges  and 
a  staff  of  experts.  They  came  over  here  and  you 
saw  Mr.  Balfour  in  the  Houses  of  Congress  and 
at  the  White  House  and  in  public  meetings  at  one 
place  and  another,  but  the  group  of  experts  whom 
they  brought  over  with  them  you  did  not  see  much 
of;  for  they  distributed  themselves  through 
the  War  Department,  and  their  ordnance  experts 
sat  down  with  Gen.  Crozier,  their  supply  experts 
with  Gen.  Sharpe  and  his  assistants,  their  strate- 
gists sat  down  with  the  Army  War  College,  and 
all  over  this  city  there  were  these  confidential 
groups  exchanging  information;  telling  how  the 
thing  was  over  there ;  what  we  could  do,  what  they 
advised  us  to  do;  what  experience  they  had  had 
in  developing  this,  that,  and  the  other  implement 
or  supply;  how  certain  plans  which  one  might 
naturally  have  evolved  out  of  the  past  experience 
of  the  world  had  been  tried  and  found  not  to 
work  at  all. 

They  were  exchanging  information,  giving  us 
all  that  they  thought  was  helpful.  And  then 
came  Joffre,  with  his  wonderful  reputation  and 
his  great  and  charming  personality,  and  he  made 
a  great  figure  here  and  we  welcomed  him.  It 
was  a  tremendous  inspiration  to  see  the  hero  of 
the  Marne;  but  with  him  came  his  unobserved 
staff  of  fifteen  or  twenty  or  twenty-five  young 
men,  the  most  brilliant  men  in  the  French  Army 
— strategists,  mechanical  experts,  experts  in 
arms,  experts  in  supplies,  experts  in  industry  and 
[306] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

manufacture,  and  they  told  us  not  merely  the  for- 
mal and  military  problems,  but  they  brought  over 
with  them  men  who  were  in  the  war  from  the  be- 
ginning; in  their  reorganization  of  their  indus- 
tries; in  their  mobilization  of  their  industrial 
plants ;  and  we  sat  down  with  them  in  little  groups 
until  finally  we  collated  and  collected  and  ex- 
tracted all  the  information  which  they  could  give 
us  from  their  respective  countries.  And  every 
country  which  has  been  brought  in  the  war  has 
sent  us  that  sort  of  a  staff  of  experts,  and  it  has 
been  necessary  to  compare  notes,  and  upon  that 
basis  to  form  such  an  idea  as  might  be  formed  of 
what  we  should  do  over  there. 

But  that  was  not  enough.  They  could  describe 
to  us  and  bring  the  specifications  and  drawings 
for  a  piece  of  artillery,  but  they  could  not  tell  us 
why  the  British  theory  of  the  use  of  artillery  was 
preferred  by  the  British  to  that  of  the  French. 
They  could  not  picture  to  us  a  barrage  of  heavy 
howitzers,  as  compared  to  a  barrage  of  75  mm. 
guns.  They  could  not  picture  to  us  the  associa- 
tion of  aircraft,  balloons  and  mobile  aircraft 
with  artillery  uses.  They  could  tell  us  about  it, 
but  even  while  they  told  us,  the  story  grew  old. 
The  one  thing  they  told  us  from  the  very  begin- 
ning to  the  end  was  that  this  war,  of  all  oth- 
ers, was  not  a  static  thing;  that  our  adver- 
sary was  a  versatile  and  agile  adversary;  that 
every  day  he  revamped  and  changed  his  weapons 
of  attack  and  his  methods  of  defense;  that  the 
[307] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

stories  they  were  telling  us  were  true  when  they 
left  England  and  France,  but  an  entirely  different 
thing  was  probably  taking  place  there  now;  and 
they  told  us  of  large  supplies  of  weapons  of  one 
kind  and  another  which  they  had  developed  in 
France  and  England  and  which,  even  before  they 
got  them  manufactured  in  sufficient  quantity  to 
take  them  from  the  industrial  plants  to  the  front, 
were  superseded  by  new  ideas  and  had  to  be 
thrown  into  the  scrap  heap. 

They  said  to  us,  "This  is  a  moving  picture ;  it  is 
something  that  nobody  can  paint,  and  give  you  an 
idea  of.  It  is  not  a  static  thing." 

Therefore,  it  became  necessary  for  us  to  have 
eyes  there  in  constant  and  immediate  communica- 
tion with  us,  and  we  sent  over  to  France  Gen. 
Pershing,  and  we  sent  with  him  not  merely  a  di- 
vision of  troops — to  that  I  shall  refer  in  a  mo- 
ment— but  we  sent  with  him,  perhaps  I  can  say 
safely,  the  major  part  of  the  trained,  expert  per- 
sonnel of  the  Army.  You  know  the  size  of  the 
official  corps  of  the  Regular  Army  in  this  country 
when  the  war  broke  out.  It  was  a  pitiful  hand- 
ful of  trained  men,  and  yet  it  was  necessary  to 
divide  them  up  and  send  over  to  France  officers 
of  the  highest  quality  so  that  they  could  be  at 
the  front  and  observe  in  the  workshops  and  in  the 
factories  and  in  the  war  offices,  and  in  the  armies, 
where  consultations  would  take  place  immedi- 
ately back  of  the  front — so  that  they  could  see 
the  thing  with  their  own  eyes,  and  send  us  back 
[308] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

by  cable  every  day  the  details  of  the  changing 
character  of  this  war. 

Gen.  Pershing's  staff  of  experts  and  officers 
over  there  runs  into  the  thousands,  and  they  are 
busy  every  minute.  Every  day  that  the  sun  rises 
I  get  cablegrams  from  Gen.  Pershing  from  ten  to 
sixteen  and  twenty  pages  long,  filled  with  measure- 
ments and  formulas  and  changes  of  a  millimeter 
in  size,  great  long  specifications  of  changes  in  de- 
tails of  things  which  were  agreed  upon  last  week 
and  changed  this  week,  and  need  to  be  changed 
again  next  week,  so  that  what  we  are  doing  at  this 
end  is  attempting  by  using  the  eyes  of  the  army 
there,  to  keep  up  to  what  they  want  us  to  do. 

Already  you  will  find  in  your  further  examina- 
tion into  some  of  the  bureau  work  of  the  Depart- 
ment, and  the  work  of  some  of  the  divisions,  that 
schedules  which  were  agreed  upon,  weapons 
which  were  selected,  and  which  we  had  started  to 
manufacture,  have  been  so  far  discarded  that 
people  have  forgotten  the  names  of  them,  almost, 
and  new  things  have  been  substituted  in  their 
place,  and  those  forgotten  and  still  others  put  in 
their  places. 

So  that  if  one  gets  the  idea  that  this  is  the  sort 
of  war  we  used  to  have,  or  if  he  gets  the  idea  that 
this  is  a  static  thing,  it  is  an  entirely  erroneous 
idea.  When  you  remember  that  we  had  to  di- 
vide this  little  handful  of  officers  that  we  had 
and  send  so  large  a  part  of  them  to  France,  and 
when  you  think  of  those  who  remained  at  home, 
[309] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

you  will  realize,  I  am  sure,  that  those  who  re- 
mained here  had  and  still  have  a  double  duty,  for 
either  aspect  of  which  they  are  insufficient  in 
numbers;  they  had  to  go  forward  with  manu- 
factures, work  out  industry  and  industrial  rela- 
tions; they  had  to  see  about  supplies  of  raw  ma- 
terials and  manufacture  finished  products,  and 
make  from  day  to  day  alterations  and  changes 
that  had  to  be  made;  and  they  had  to  be  inge- 
nious with  suggestions,  to  see  whether  they  could 
devise  on  this  side  something  which  had  not  been 
thought  of  over  there.  They  had  to  be  hospitable 
to  suggestions  which  came  from  the  other  side; 
they  had  to  confer  with  the  foreign  officers  who 
were  here  and  were  constantly  being  changed,  so 
that  men  fresh  from  the  front  could  be  here  to 
advise  with  us ;  and  in  addition  to  that  every  one 
of  them  had  to  be  a  university  professor,  going 
out  into  the  life  of  the  community  and  selecting 
men  who  had  mechanical  experience  and  knowl- 
edge and  training,  though  not  on  military  lines, 
and  adding  to  his  original  equipment  the  scien- 
tific training,  that  finishing  touch  which  made 
him  available  for  use  as  a  military  scientist. 

As  a  consequence,  this  little  group  which  stayed 
here  has  built  the  great  special  departments  of 
the  Army.  The  Ordnance  Department,  starting, 
I  think,  with  93  or  96  officers,  has  now,  as  I  recall 
the  figures,  something  like  3,000  officers.  They 
have  had  to  be  trained ;  they  have  had  to  be  spe- 
cialized, and  that  has  had  to  go  on  contempo- 
[310] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

raneously  with  this  tremendous  response  to  the 
changing  conditions  on  the  other  side. 

In  the  meantime,  when  we  started  into  this  war 
I  think  it  was  commonly  thought  throughout  the 
country  that  our  contribution  at  the  outset  might 
well  be  financial  and  industrial.  The  industries 
of  this  country,  the  appropriate  industries,  and 
many  converted  industries,  were  largely  devoted 
to  the  manufacture  of  war  materials  for  our 
Allies. 

As  I  suggested  this  morning,  when  we  went 
into  that  market  we  found  it  largely  occupied,  so 
that  our  problem  was  not  going  to  a  factory,  let 
me  say  a  shoe  factory,  and  saying,  "Make  shoes 
for  us,"  but  it  was  going  to  a  factory  which  never 
made  shoes — because  all  the  shoe  factories  were 
busy  making  shoes  for  people  from  whom  we 
could  not  take  them — and  saying,  "Learn  how  to 
make  shoes  in  order  that  you  may  make  them 
for  us." 

Now,  of  course,  that  is  not  true  of  shoes,  but  it 
is  true  of  machine  guns,  it  is  true  of  other  arms, 
it  is  true  of  ammunition,  it  is  true  of  forging  ca- 
pacity, which  was  the  greatest  shortage.  We 
could  neither  disturb  the  program  of  allied  manu- 
facture in  this  country,  nor  cut  off  the  supplies  of 
raw  material  to  our  Allies,  nor  could  we  disturb 
the  industry  of  this  country  to  such  an  extent  that 
agricultural  and  commercial  and  industrial 
products  upon  which  they  depended  for  the  suc- 
[311] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

cess  of  their  military  operations  would  be  inter- 
fered with. 

At  the  outset  the  idea  was  wide-spread  that  we 
would  be  primarily  of  financial  and  industrial  as- 
sistance to  our  Allies  during  the  year  1918.  Let 
me  read  from  the  Metropolitan  Magazine  for 
August  a  suggestion  which  will  show  what  the 
current  expectation  of  the  country  was.  Its  edi- 
tor was  protesting  against  what  he  believed  to  be 
the  intention  of  the  Government  at  that  time. 

"Since  it  is  our  war,  we  want  to  put  everything 
into  it  so  as  to  finish  it  in  the  shortest  possible 
time,  so  that  the  world  may  be  restored.  To  our 
mind  the  whole  plan  of  the  War  Department  has 
been  flavored  with  a  desire  to  hold  off  until  the 
Allies  finish  the  war  for  us." 

You  see,  the  editor  was  dealing  with  what  he 
supposed  to  be  the  intention  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment at  that  time,  that  we  were  holding  off,  so 
far  as  actual  military  operations  were  concerned, 
and  letting  the  Allies  do  the  fighting. 

What  he  says  we  should  have  done,  and  I  ask 
your  particular  attention  to  it,  is  this : 

"We  should  have  strained  every  energy  to  have 
gotten  from  50,000  to  100,000  men  to  France  this 
year." 

That  is,  the  year  1917.  I  tell  no  secret,  but  it 
is  perfectly  well  known  to  everybody  in  this 
group,  that  we  have  far  exceeded  what  in  August, 
1917,  was  regarded  as  a  program  so  ideal  that 
the  editor  of  this  magazine  refers  to  it  as  a  thing 
[312] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

which  we  ought  to  have  strained  every  nerve  in 
a  vain  but  hopeless  effort  to  accomplish. 

And  then  the  editor  goes  on : 

"And  by  next  year,  1918,  we  could  have  had 
500,000  men  to  send  over,  or  any  part  of  500,000 
men  which  we  could  ship." 

Now,  instead  of  having  50,000  or  100,000  men 
in  France  in  1917,  we  have  many  more  men  than 
that  in  France,  and  instead  of  having  a  half  a 
million  men  whom  we  could  ship  to  France  if  we 
could  find  any  way  to  do  it  in  1918,  we  will  have 
more  than  one-half  million  men  in  France  early 
in  1918,  and  if  the  transportation  facilities  are 
available  to  us,  and  the  prospect  is  not  unpromis- 
ing, we  will  have  one  and  one-half  million  who  in 
1918  can  be  shipped  to  France. 

Why  did  we  decide  to  send  some  troops  to 
France  in  1917  ?  It  is  no  secret.  When  Marshal 
Joffre  came  to  this  country  from  France,  when 
the  British  mission  came,  they  told  us  of  a  situa- 
tion which  we  had  not  up  to  that  time  fully  ap- 
preciated. Just  before  that  time  there  had  been 
conducted  in  France  an  unsuccessful  major  offen- 
sive. The  French  people  had  suffered,  oh,  suf- 
fered in  a  way  that  not  only  our  language 
is  not  adapted  to  describe,  but  our  imagination 
can  not  conceive.  The  war  is  in  their  country. 
This  wolf  has  not  only  been  at  their  door,  but  he 
has  been  gnawing  for  two  years  and  a  half  at 
their  vitals,  and  when  this  unsuccessful  offensive 
in  France  had  gone  on  there  was  a  spirit  not  of 
[313] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

surrender,  but  of  fate,  about  the  French  people. 
This  mighty  military  engine  which  they  had 
seen  prepared  to  overcome  them  for  forty  years 
was  at  them,  and  their  attitude  was  that  no  mat- 
ter whether  or  not  every  Frenchman  died  in  his 
tracks,  as  they  were  willing  to  do,  it  was  an 
irresistible  thing,  and  so  they  said  to  us,  "Frankly, 
it  will  cheer  us ;  it  will  cheer  our  people  if  you  send 
over  some  of  your  troops." 

We  did  send  some  troops. 

At  that  time  we  had  a  choice.  We  could  have 
sent  over,  as  Great  Britain  did,  our  Regular 
Army,  and  with  a  very  short  preparation  have  put 
it  into  action  and  suffered  exactly  what  Great 
Britain  suffered  with  her  contemptible  little  army, 
as  it  was  called  by  her  adversaries.  Our  army 
would  have  given  as  good  an  account  of  itself  as 
the  British  Army  did,  but  it  would  have  been 
destroyed  like  the  British  Army,  and  there  would 
have  been  no  nucleus  around  which  to  build  this 
new  army  that  was  to  come  over  a  little  later.  So 
it  was  deemed  wiser  to  send  over  a  regular  divi- 
sion, but  not  to  send  over  our  whole  Regular 
Army  at  that  time. 

Then  what  happened  was  that  that  regular  di- 
vision went  over  and  the  people  of  France  kissed 
the  hems  of  their  garments  as  they  marched  up 
the  streets  of  Paris.  The  old  veterans,  wounded  in 
this  war,  legless  or  armless,  stumping  along  on 
crutches,  perhaps,  went  up  the  streets  of 
Paris  with  their  arms  around  the  necks  of  Ameri- 
[314] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

can  soldiers.  Not  a  single  man  in  that  division 
was  unaccompanied  by  a  veteran.  America  had 
gone  to  France,  and  the  French  people  rose  with 
a  sense  of  gratitude  and  hopefulness  that  had 
never  been  in  them  before. 

Of  course  they  welcomed  the  British,  but  their 
need  was  not  so  great  when  the  British  went.  Of 
course  they  welcomed  the  British,  but  there  were 
ties  between  them  and  us  which  had  not  existed 
between  them  and  the  British,  and  so  when  our 
troops  went,  there  was  an  instant  and  spontane- 
ous rise  in  the  morale  of  the  French,  and  an 
equally  instant  and  spontaneous  insistence  that 
these  soldiers  from  America  should  continue  to 
come  in  an  unbroken  stream. 

And  so  we  made  the  election.  We  decided  not 
to  send  the  Regular  Army  as  a  whole,  but  to  send 
regular  divisions  and  National  Guard  divisions, 
selected  according  to  the  state  of  their  prepara- 
tion, and  keep  back  here  some  part  of  our  trained 
force  in  order  that  it  might  inoculate  with  its 
spirit  and  its  discipline  these  raw  levies  which  we 
are  training.  One  after  another  these  divisions 
have  gone  until  in  France  there  is  a  fighting 
army,  an  army  trained  in  the  essentials  and  in  the 
beginnings  of  military  discipline  and  practice, 
and  trained,  seasoned  fighters  in  this  kind  of  war 
are  now  on  the  actual  battlefields. 

Early  in  this  war,  when  Joffre  and  Balfour 
were  here,  they  said  to  us,  "It  may  take  you  some 
time  to  get  over  to  us  a  great  fighting  army,  but 
[315] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

you  are  a  great  industrial  country.  Our  man 
power  is  fully  engaged  in  our  industries  and  in 
our  military  enterprises,  so  send  over  artisans, 
special  engineering  regiments,  and  troops  of  a 
technical  character."  Although  it  was  not  con- 
templated at  the  outset,  and  only  a  phrase  in  the 
emergency  military  legislation  shows  that  the 
thing  was  thought  of  as  a  possibility,  yet  in  a  very 
short  time  we  had  organized  engineering  regi- 
ments of  railroad  men  and  sent  them  over  there 
and  were  rebuilding,  behind  the  lines  of  the  Brit- 
ish and  French,  railroads  which  were  being  car- 
ried forward  with  their  advance,  reconstructing 
their  broken  engines  and  cars  and  tracks.  Those 
regiments  were  of  such  quality  that  at  the  Cam- 
brai  assault,  carried  on  by  Gen.  Byng,  when 
the  Germans  made  their  counter  attack,  our  engi- 
neer regiments  threw  down  their  picks  and  spades 
and  carried  rifles  into  the  battle  and  distinguished 
themselves  by  gallant  action  in  the  battle  itself. 
Very  early  in  this  war  Great  Britain  and 
France,  through  Balfour  and  Joffre,  said  to  us, 
"Send  us  nurses  and  doctors."  Why,  we  were 
scarcely  in  the  war  before  American  units,  or- 
ganized in  advance  and  anticipation  by  the  Red 
Cross,  were  taken  over  into  the  service  of  the 
United  States  through  the  Surgeon  General's 
Office,  and  were  on  the  battlefield.  There  are  tens 
of  thousands  of  men  in  England  and  in  France 
now  who  bless  the  mission  of  mercy  upon  which 
the  first  Americans  appeared  on  the  West  Front. 
[316] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

Our  surgeons  have  set  up  hospitals  immedi- 
ately behind  the  lines.  They  have  been  made 
military  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  They  have 
not  been  especially  fortunate  in  escaping  attack 
from  the  air,  and  our  early  losses  in  this  war 
were  losses  of  Red  Cross  nurses,  doctors,  order- 
lies, attendants  in  hospitals  and  ambulance 
drivers,  who  were  sent  over  to  assist  our 
Allies  in  these  necessary  services,  thus  not  only 
rendering  assistance,  but  acquiring  skill  and 
knowledge  of  the  circumstances  and  surround- 
ings, so  that  when  our  own  troops  came  in  large 
numbers  they  could  render  like  services  to  them. 

But  that  was  not  enough.  It  was  suggested 
that  further  groups  of  mechanics  might  be 
needed.  Nay,  we  began  to  see  that  we  were 
going  to  be  over  there  in  large  force,  and  the 
question  that  then  had  to  be  answered  was,  How 
will  we  maintain  an  army  in  France?  Special 
studies  had  to  be  made  of  that  problem,  and  this  is 
what  they  showed: 

They  showed  that  the  railroads  and  the  facili- 
ties of  France  had  during  this  war  been  kept  in 
an  excellent  condition,  far  better  than  any  one 
supposed  possible  under  war  conditions.  But 
they  also  showed  that  those  railroads  were  used 
to  the  maximum  in  taking  care  of  the  needs  of 
the  French  and  the  British  themselves,  and  that 
when  our  army  became  a  great  army  it  would  be 
necessary  for  us  to  build  back  of  our  own  line  an 
independent  line  of  communication. 
[317] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

In  other  words,  France  was  a  white  sheet  of 
paper  so  far  as  we  were  concerned,  and  on  that 
we  had  not  only  to  write  an  army,  but  we  had  to 
write  the  means  of  maintaining  that  army. 
From  the  first  time  when  a  careful  and  scientific 
study  of  the  opportunities  of  France  to  help  us 
was  made,  until  this  hour,  we  have  been  build- 
ing in  France  facilities,  instruments,  agencies 
just  as  many  as  we  have  here  in  the  United 
States  and  more.  For  instance,  the  French  had 
naturally  reserved  the  best  ports  in  France  for 
their  own  supply.  The  Channel  ports  had  been 
reserved  for  the  British.  When  we  came  in  it  was 
necessary  for  us  to  have  independent  ports  of 
entry  in  order  that  there  might  not  be  confusion 
and  admixture  of  our  supplies  going  through 
these  ports  of  disembarkation  with  those  of  other 
nations.  We  were  given  several  ports.  As  you 
perhaps  recall,  the  ports  of  France  are  tidal  ports, 
with  tidal  basins,  ports  with  deep  water  at  high 
tides  but  with  insufficient  water  for  landing  at  the 
docks  when  the  tide  is  out. 

As  a  consequence,  the  construction  of  docks 
and  wharves  in  the  tidal  basins  of  ports  of  that 
kind  is  very  much  more  difficult  than  where  you 
have  a  deep  sea  harbor  and  all  you  need  to  do  is  to 
erect  a  pile  wharf.  We  have  had  to  build  docks ; 
we  have  had  to  fabricate  in  this  country  and  send 
over  dock-handling  machinery;  we  have  had  to 
send  from  this  country  even  the  piles  to  build  the 
docks.  We  have  had  to  have  gauntry  cranes 
[318] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

manufactured  in  this  country  and  sent  over  to  be 
erected  on  those  docks ;  we  have  had  to  erect  over 
there  warehouses  at  the  ports  of  disembarkation 
in  order  that  these  vast  accumulations  of  stores 
and  supplies  which  go  over  can  be  properly  housed 
and  cared  for  until  they  can  be  distributed  into 
the  interior. 

We  have  had  to  take  over,  and  are  in  process 
of  rebuilding  and  amplifying,  a  railroad  600  miles 
long  in  order  to  carry  our  products  from  our  ports 
of  disembarkation  to  our  general  bases  of  opera- 
tion. And  all  of  that,  gentlemen,  has  had  to  be 
done  in  this  country  and  the  things  shipped  over 
there — nails,  cross  ties,  spikes,  fish  plates, engines, 
cars,  buildings.  We  have  had  to  build  ordnance 
depots  and  repair  shops  and  great  magazines  of 
supply  in  the  interior.  All  of  that  problem  has 
been  carried  forward  step  by  step,  the  plans  for 
a  single  ordnance  repair  shop,  which  I  saw  some 
time  ago,  covering  acres  and  acres  of  ground. 
These  buildings  are  designed  over  here,  the  iron- 
work fabricated  over  here,  disassembled,  put  in 
ships,  and  carried  abroad  to  be  reassembled  over 
there. 

We  have  had  to  build  barracks  over  there  for 
our  soldiers,  and  in  the  meantime  to  billet  them 
about  in  the  French  villages.  Building  barracks 
over  there  and  building  them  here  are  very  dif- 
ferent things,  gentlemen. 

When  we  summoned  the  lumber  industry  of 
this  country  to  produce  the  lumber  to  build  our 
[319] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

cantonments  here  it  came  in  a  great  and  steady 
stream  from  all  over  the  country.  But  when  we 
talk  about  building  barracks  in  France  it  means 
this :  It  means  organizing — as  we  have  organized 
— regiments  of  foresters;  and  sending  them  over 
into  the  forests  of  France  which  they  have  as- 
signed to  us  for  our  use ;  cutting  down  the  trees ; 
setting  up  sawmills ;  making  the  lumber  of  vari- 
ous sizes ;  transporting  it  to  the  places  where  it  is 
to  be  used;  and  then  finally  putting  it  in  place. 
In  France  we  have  had  to  go  back  to  the  planting 
of  the  corn  in  order  that  we  might  some  time  reap 
a  harvest.  Our  operations  began  in  the  forests 
of  France,  not  in  the  lumber  yards  as  they  did  in 
this  country. 

That  great  staff  under  Gen.  Pershing's  direc- 
tion, containing  so  many  men  from  the  American 
Army,  is  further  enriched  by  our  captains  of  in- 
dustry and  masters  of  technical  performance. 
The  railroad  and  dock  buildings,  for  example,  are 
under  a  former  vice  president  and  perhaps  still  a 
vice  president  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  Gen. 
William  Wallace  Atterbury.  Such  are  the  men 
who  are  carrying  forward  these  operations,  which 
are  quite  as  extensive  as  any  carried  on  over  here, 
and  of  far  greater  difficulty,  because  they  involve 
ordering  material  by  cable  as  to  sizes  and  speci- 
fications, having  it  fabricated  here,  and  sent 
across  through  these  infested  3,000  miles  of 
ocean,  and  then  set  up  over  there. 

In  addition  to  that,  it  has  been  necessary  for 
[320] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

us  to  build  hospitals  on  the  other  side,  for  that  is 
where  the  major  need  for  hospitals  may  well  be. 
It  has  been  necessary  for  the  Surgeon  General's 
staff  to  meet  a  twofold  demand ;  to  select  supplies 
and  procure  materials,  to  send  over  staffs  of 
trained  persons  to  supervise  the  construction  of 
these  hospitals  and  to  man  them  and  equip  them. 

All  of  that  has  gone  on  contemporaneously 
with  the  work  which  has  been  done  in 
this  country. 

In  order  that  another  element  may  be  added  to 
the  kaleidoscopic  character  which  this  war  neces- 
sarily has,  let  me  recall  to  your  attention  a  thing 
which  you  already  know.  This  war  had  a  more 
or  less  set  character  until  the  Russian  situation 
changed,  as  it  has  changed,  in  the  last  few 
months.  When  we  had  gotten  more  or  less  used 
to  the  situation  created  by  the  uncertainty  as  to 
Russia,  there  came  the  great  Italian  defeat,  which 
in  many  ways  called  for  even  greater  changes 
in  our  plans. 

So  that  what  might  have  been  a  perfectly  ac- 
ceptable plan  as  to  major  operations  prior  to  the 
change  in  the  Russian  situation,  or  prior  to  the 
change  in  the  Italian  situation,  had  to  be  restudied 
instantly.  For  that  reason,  among  others,  there 
is  now  organized,  as  you  know,  in  France,  pur- 
suant to  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George, 
the  Rapallo  Conference,  or  Supreme  War  Coun- 
cil, and  the  United  States  is  represented  on 
[321] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

that  by  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  American  Army. 
The  major  international  arrangements  in  re- 
gard to  military  questions  are  worked  out  there, 
while  Gen.  Pershing  and  his  staff  of  experts  are 
working  out  these  other  questions. 

That  is  a  faint  picture  of  what  has  been  going 
on  over  there,  gentlemen.  On  this  side  much  also 
has  had  to  be  done.  I  ask  you  to  remember 
among  the  achievements  on  this  side,  the  building 
of  this  army,  not  of  50,000  or  100,000  or  500,000, 
but  of  substantially  a  million  and  one-half  men. 

And  now  let  me  be  frank  with  you,  and  let  your 
judgment  be  frank  with  me  about  this.  Has  any 
army  in  history,  ever,  since  the  beginning  of 
time,  been  so  raised  and  cared  for  as  this  army 
has?  Can  the  picture  be  duplicated?  We  have 
raised  the  Regular  Army  and  the  National  Guard 
to  war  strength  and  supplemented  them  by  the 
operation  of  a  draft.  There  are  Senators  in  this 
room  who  said  to  me  with  grief  when  we  pro- 
posed that  form  of  raising  soldiers,  "Mr.  Secre- 
tary, it  can't  be  done.  It  is  too  sudden  to  address 
to  the  American  people  that  mode  of  selecting 
soldiers."  And  yet,  has  any  great  enterprise 
within  the  knowledge  of  any  man  in  this  room 
ever  been  carried  out  with  more  unfailing  justice, 
with  more  intelligent  explanation  and  commenda- 
tion to  the  good  sense  of  patriotism  of  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  has  any  great  and  revolutionary 
change  in  our  mode  of  practice  ever  been  ac- 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

cepted  so  splendidly  as  the  operation  of  the  selec- 
tive service  system? 

We  have  got  these  young  men  in  camp, 
they  are  surrounded  from  the  day  they  left  home 
until  the  day  they  come  back  to  it,  if  in  God's 
providence  they  can  come  back,  with  more  agen- 
cies for  their  protection  and  comfort  and  health 
and  happiness,  physical,  spiritual,  and  mental, 
than  ever  before  surrounded  any  army  that  ever 
went  out  on  a  field. 

They  are  classified  by  a  system  under  which 
men  who  have  mechanical  instincts  and  training 
will  be  given  mechanical  opportunities  in  the 
army.  The  "round"  man  is  not  put  into  the 
"square"  place.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  to  which  the 
American  people  have  subscribed  liberally;  the 
Knights  of  Columbus,  the  Young  Women's 
Christian  Association,  the  Training  Camp  Activi- 
ties Committee,  the  Training  Camp  Athletic  Com- 
mittee, the  Red  Cross,  have  all  been  brought  in  to 
live  with  the  soldiers.  By  virtue  of  activities 
started  in  the  War  Department  the  communities 
which  surround  the  camps  have  been  won  away 
from  the  notion  which  used  to  prevail  of  a 
certain  alienation  between  a  civilian  and  soldier 
group,  and  the  soldier  boys  in  these  camps  have 
been  adopted  into  the  homes  and  hearts  of  the 
people  among  whom  they  live.  No  such  rela- 
tion has  ever  existed  between  an  army  and  a 
civilian  population  as  exists  with  regard  to  ours. 
[323] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

With  your  aid,  by  the  establishment  of  zones, 
by  the  establishment  of  patrol  systems  of  one  kind 
and  another,  the  Army  has  been  able  practically 
to  stamp  out  intemperance  and  vice  among  the 
soldiers.  By  the  training  in  the  training  camps 
of  these  young  officers,  men  of  experience  and 
fine  feeling,  we  have  gotten  into  this  great  army 
the  idea  that  it  can  be  a  strong  and  effective 
military  body  and  still  be  free  from  things  which 
have  hitherto  weakened  and  sapped  the  vitality 
and  virility  of  armies. 

I  have  gone  from  camp  to  camp  among  these 
cantonments,  and  my  first  question  to  the  camp 
commander  almost  invariably  has  been,  "What 
about  your  disciplinary  problem?" 

Old  men  in  the  Army,  men  whose  lives  have 
been  spent  in  it  from  their  boyhood,  and  who 
have  been  all  over  the  continental  United  States 
and  through  its  insular  possessions  wherever  our 
armies  have  been,  who  know  the  life  of  the  sol- 
dier and  the  camp  and  the  post,  all  say  with  one 
accord  and  no  exception,  that  they  have  never 
seen  anything  like  this ;  that  the  disciplinary  prob- 
lems of  the  Army  are  reduced  to  a  negligible 
quantity.  As  a  result,  instead  of  the  melancholy 
and  pathetic  parade  through  the  Secretary  of 
War's  office  of  court-martial  after  court-martial 
upon  men  who  have  yielded  to  temptation  under 
these  unfamiliar  circumstances,  which  used  to  ob- 
tain, I  have  only  an  infrequent  case  now  and  then. 

When  Lord  Northcliffe  returned  to  England 
[324] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

he  was  invited  by  Lloyd  George,  as  I  recall  it,  to 
accept  a  position  in  his  cabinet.  He  wrote  a  let- 
ter which  was  printed  in  the  papers,  and  in  that 
he  made  this  casual  reference  to  the  United 
States.  He  spoke  of  his  visit  here,  and  spoke  of 
our  war  preparations  in  this  fashion: 

"War  preparations  are  proceeding  in  the  virile 
atmosphere  of  the  United  States  and  Canada  with 
a  fervor  and  enthusiasm  little  understood  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic." 

He  was  then  in  England.  I  happen  to  have  a 
copy  of  a  confidential  instruction  issued  by  the 
German  Government  in  June,  1917,  to  the  Ger- 
man press  as  to  what  course  they  should  take  in 
dealing  with  American  matters,  and  this  says : 

"While  the  news  about  American  war  prepara- 
tion, such  as  the  organizing  and  outfitting  of  an 
Army  of  1,000,000  men  strong  to  reinforce  the 
French-English  front,  is  looked  upon  in  that  form 
as  bluff,  the  spreading  of  which  may  unfavor- 
ably affect  the  opinion  of  the  German  people,  yet 
the  fact  must  not  be  overlooked,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  United  States  with  the  support  of 
its  capacity  for  material  and  industrial  manage- 
ment is  arming  itself  for  war  with  great  energy 
and  tenacity." 

Your  investigations,  gentlemen,  have  much  still 
to  cover ;  but,  when  it  is  all  told,  Mr.  Chairman,  it 
will  be  a  story  which  I  am  sure  your  committee 
will  be  glad  to  report  to  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  as  being  a  tremendous  response  to  a  tre- 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

mendous  responsibility.  When  you  have  com- 
pleted this  investigation,  I  know  that  the  Ameri- 
can people  will  feel,  as  I  think  they  have  a  right 
to  feel,  that  we  are  in  this  war  to  win  it ;  that  we 
are  in  it  to  hit  and  to  hit  hard ;  that  we  are  in  it  to 
coordinate  our  strength  with  that  of  our  asso- 
ciates; that  the  problem  is  not  one  of  individual 
star  playing  but  team  play  with  these  veterans 
under  actual  battle  conditions ;  that  more  has  been 
done,  perhaps,  than  the  country  expected,  more 
than  the  wisest  in  the  country  thought  it  was 
possible  to  do. 

In  so  far  as  I  am  personally  concerned,  I  know 
what  is  ahead  of  us.  I  know  what  the  American 
feeling  about  this  war  is.  Everybody  is  impa- 
tient for  us  to  do  as  much  as  we  can.  There  will  be 
no  division  of  counsel ;  there  will  be  all  the  criti- 
cism there  ought  to  be  upon  shortcomings  and 
failures ;  there  will  be,  so  far  as  the  War  Depart- 
ment is  concerned,  a  continuing  effort  at  self- 
improvement  and  a  hospitality  toward  every  sug- 
gestion for  improvement  that  can  come  from  the 
outside.  But  the  net  result  is  going  to  be  that  a 
united  and  confident  American  people,  believing 
in  themselves  and  in  their  institutions,  are  going 
to  demand,  and  that  at  no  late  day  on  European 
battle  fields,  in  the  face  of  veterans  with  whom 
they  are  proud  to  associate,  a  demonstration  that, 
veterans  though  these  men  be,  they  can  not  excel 
us  in  achievement.  And  when  the  victory  is  won 
over  there,  the  credit  which  will  come  to  Amer- 
[326] 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  DONE  TO  MAKE  WAR 

ican  enterprise  and  to  American  determination 
and  to  American  courage  will  be  an  honor  to  us, 
as  the  tenacity  of  purpose  and  splendid  achieve- 
ments of  the  British  and  French  have  already 
shed  luster  on  the  names  of  those  great  nations. 


[327] 


WITH    THE    AMERICAN    EXPEDITION- 
ARY FORCES  IN  FRANCE 

To  THE  ENGINEERS, 
MARCH  14,  1918. 

'T^HESE  days  have  been  worth  my  trip  across 
J.  the  Atlantic  in  the  information  and  encour- 
agement which  they  have  given  me.  I  have  seen 
only  the  effort  in  two  ports,  only  the  receiving 
depots  of  the  great  war  plant  which  we  are  con- 
structing. But  I  have  seen  enough  to  convince 
me  that  we  now  have  an  organization  which  will 
meet  the  problem  with  its  increasing  volume  of 
demand,  of  coupling  up  the  ports  of  embarkation 
at  home  with  the  ports  of  debarkation  in  France. 
I  find  that  the  written  reports  have  given  me 
an  inadequate  idea  of  the  difficulties  which  the 
enemy  said  we  could  not  overcome,  and  which 
we  are  overcoming.  After  her  long  and  stout- 
hearted defense,  France  could  spare  us  little 
material  or  labor  for  our  purposes,  except  by 
ill-advised  diversions  from  her  own  organization. 
She  could  only  offer  us  land  on  which  to  raise 
our  structures  and  the  right  of  way  for  our  com- 
munications. 

I  should  like  to  pay  a  tribute  to  you  men  who 
[328] 


EXPEDITIONARY  FORCES  IN  FRANCE 

began  last  summer  and  fall  to  bring  into  being 
the  blueprints  of  a  great  conception,  which  is 
now  advanced  enough  to  yield  conviction  of  suc- 
cess to  any  observer;  and  a  tribute  to  our  engi- 
neers and  experts  from  civil  life  in  all  branches 
who  serve  with  the  officers  of  the  regular  engi- 
neers in  command  of  an  increasing  army  of 
workers,  all  doing  their  part. 

You  come  from  a  pioneering  people  and  you 
have  brought  to  France  a  pioneering  energy. 
You  have  turned  marshes  into  docks,  facing 
waterways  which  you  will  dredge;  sent  out  a 
spur  of  railway  track;  and  built  warehouses  and 
the  necessary  supplementary  plants  for  a  system 
which  will  dispatch  along  the  lines  of  communi- 
cation to  the  front  food,  clothes,  guns,  ammuni- 
tion, and  all  the  enormous  amount  of  complicated 
war  material  which  the  resources  of  our  country 
can  supply,  to  be  transported  by  ships  which  we 
are  building. 

We  owe  it  to  your  devotion  and  efficiency  that 
the  troops  in  action  shall  not  lack  the  means  of 
striking  blows.  I  only  wish  that  every  American 
could  see  this  work  as  I  saw  it.  I  ceased  to  be 
an  official  while  I  thrilled  as  a  citizen  with  pride 
and  satisfaction  over  the  ever-increasing  force 
which  we  shall  bring  to  the  aid  of  the  Allied 
armies  in  France. 


[329] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

To  THE  OFFICERS  OF  THE  GENERAL  STAFF, 
MARCH  18,  1918. 

It  was  with  a  view  to  following  the  route  of 
our  troops  and  material  along  the  lines  of  com- 
munication to  the  front  that  I  began  my  tour 
with  the  ports  of  debarkation.  To-day  I  have 
been  through  the  busy  offices  of  the  General  Staff 
and  the  administrative  departments  at  head- 
quarters. I  have  met  the  men  who  from  this 
nerve  center  direct  the  organization  which  they 
have  created. 

I  appreciate  how  you  would  prefer  to  leave 
your  desks  for  the  front  line,  where  you  could 
see  the  direct  result  of  your  efforts  against  the 
enemy.  But  you  at  least  are  in  France,  and 
thereby  are  the  envy  of  those  who  are  held  at 
their  desks  in  the  same  kind  of  work  at  home. 
Many  of  you  are  former  students  at  Fort 
Leavenworth  and  the  War  College.  Action  has 
taken  the  place  of  study.  The  problems  which 
you  have  to  solve  are  no  longer  those  of  theory 
in  the  movement  of  imaginary  forces,  but  of  fact, 
in  control  of  the  supply  and  equipment  of  large 
bodies  of  troops  in  the  greatest  military  under- 
taking of  our  history. 

The  black  band  around  the  sleeve  which  is  the 
emblem  of  the  General  Staff  has  become  the  sym- 
bol of  great  responsibility  to  the  people  at  home 
and  to  the  man  in  the  trenches,  responsibility  for 
accomplishing  the  maximum  of  efficiency  in  di- 
[330] 


EXPEDITIONARY  FORCES  IN  FRANCE 

reeling  the  resources  at  your  command  with  the 
minimum  cost  of  life,  energy  and  material.  Your 
ambition  to  excel  in  your  profession  and  your 
studious  application  in  the  time  of  peace,  when 
we  had  a  small  army,  have  earned  the  gratitude 
of  your  country  at  a  time  when  the  most  valuable 
asset  we  have  is  the  well-trained  soldier  in  the 
prime  of  his  manhood  who  has  kept  his  mind  and 
body  fit  for  this  emergency. 

General  Pershing  has  had  the  vision,  the 
authority,  the  high  organizing  ability  and  the 
broad  conception  to  make  the  most  of  your  talent 
and  industry  in  the  results  which  have  been  so 
reassuring  to  me  as  Secretary  of  War.  Your 
modesty,  your  willingness  to  learn  from  the  tra- 
ditions and  technical  experience  of  the  Allied 
armies,  is  in  keeping  with  your  soldierly  realiza- 
tion that  war  is  skill  against  skill,  force  against 
force,  and  that  you  are  forming  an  army  to  fight 
against  a  most  powerful,  skillful  foe,  who  allows 
nothing  to  divert  him  from  the  main  essential. 

Your  plans  have  been  commensurate  with  your 
tasks,  your  spirit  has  been  in  keeping  with  the 
inheritance  which  you  have  from  Grant,  Jackson, 
Lee  and  Sherman.  While  you  have  been  building 
your  structure  you  have  had  to  act  as  instructors 
for  our  untrained  forces,  and  signs  are  not  want- 
ing of  your  success  in  adapting  our  national  char- 
acter and  zeal  to  the  end  of  victory. 

I  have  been  at  one  of  your  artillery  schools, 
where  young  reserve  officers  are  preparing  to 
[331] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

support  our  troops  with  their  gunfire.  I  have 
seen  your  staff  school,  where  another  group  of 
reserve  officers,  including  a  former  Secretary  of 
War,  whom  I  envy,  is  being  trained  to  assist  in 
your  staff  work  when  we  shall  number  our  corps 
in  France  as  we  now  number  our  divisions. 

Some  of  the  pioneers  in  forming  our  organiza- 
tions in  France  are  now  out  with  the  troops,  and 
officers  with  the  troops  are  being  brought  in  for 
staff  work  as  a  part  of  your  system  of  all-around 
preparation.  I  might  say  that  promotion  awaits 
those  who  have  proven  themselves  fit  to  lead  in 
the  stern  test  to  come.  However,  I  know  you 
are  not  thinking  of  promotion,  but  only,  in  a  spirit 
of  soldierly  service,  how  to  give  the  best  that  is 
in  you  to  the  cause. 

To  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION, 
MARCH  20,  1918. 

While  it  was  in  training  at  home  I  saw  a  good 
deal  of  the  Rainbow  Division.  Then,  one  day, 
it  was  gone  to  France,  where  it  disappeared 
behind  that  curtain  of  military  secrecy  which 
must  be  drawn  unless  we  choose  to  sacrifice  the 
lives  of  our  men  for  the  sake  of  publicity.  The 
enemy's  elaborate  intelligence  system  seeks  at 
any  cost  to  learn  the  strength,  the  preparedness, 
and  the  character  of  our  troops.  If  we  were  to 
announce  the  identity  of  each  unit  that  comes  to 
France,  then  we  would  fully  inform  him  of  the 
[332] 


EXPEDITIONARY  FORCES  IN  FRANCE 

number  and  the  nature  of  our  forces.  Published 
details  about  any  division  are  most  useful  to 
expert  military  intelligence  officers  in  determin- 
ing the  state  of  the  division's  training  and  the 
probable  assignment  of  the  division  to  any 
section.  Our  own  intelligence  service  assures 
us  that  the  complete  knowledge  of  our  army  in 
France  which  some  assume  to  exist  does  not 
exist.  At  least,  we  make  our  adversary  work  for 
his  information  and  spare  no  pains  to  keep  him 
as  confused  as  possible. 

But  now  it  is  safe  to  mention  certain  divisions 
which  were  first  to  arrive  in  France  and  have 
already  been  in  the  line.  This  includes  the 
Rainbow  Division,  famous  because  it  is  repre- 
sentative of  all  parts  of  the  United  States.  As 
a  military  unit,  however,  it  is  to  be  judged  only 
by  its  efficiency  against  the  enemy,  regardless  of 
its  origin.  At  the  same  time,  this  division 
should  find  in  its  nation-wide  character  an  inspir- 
ation to  esprit  de  corps  and  to  general  excellence. 
It  should  be  conscious  of  its  mission  as  a  symbol 
of  national  unity. 

The  men  of  Ohio  I  know  as  Ohioans,  and  I 
am  proud  that  they  have  been  worthy  of  Ohio. 
A  citizen  of  another  State  represented  in  this 
division  will  find  himself  equally  at  home  in  some 
other  group  of  this  division,  and  the  gauge  of 
this  State's  pride  will  be  the  discipline  of  that 
group  as  soldiers,  its  conduct  as  men,  its  courage 
and  skill  in  the  trenches. 

[333] 


FRONTIERS  OF  FREEDOM 

You  may  learn  more  than  war  in  France;  you 
may  learn  lessons  in  patriotism  from  France, 
whose  unity  and  courage  have  been  a  bulwark 
against  that  sinister  force  whose  character  you 
are  learning  in  the  trenches.  The  Frenchman  is, 
first  of  all,  a  Frenchman,  which  stimulates  rather 
than  weakens  his  pride  in  Brittany  if  he  is  a 
Breton,  or  in  Lorraine  if  he  is  a  Lorrainer ;  and 
his  loyalty  and  affection  for  his  own  town  or  vil- 
lage, and  his  home.  In  very  truth,  he  fights  for 
his  family  and  his  home  when  he  fights  for 
France  and  civilization  against  the  principle  of 
the  ruthless  conquest  of  peoples  by  other  races 
and  culture. 

You,  too,  will  fight  best  and  serve  best  by  being 
first  of  all  Americans,  with  no  diminution  of 
your  loyalty  to  your  State  and  your  community. 
Though  you  have  come  three  or  four  or  five 
thousand  miles  to  the  battleground  of  France, 
you  are  each  fighting  for  your  home,  for  your 
family,  for  all  that  you  value  as  men,  and  for 
future  generations  in  this  conflict,  whose  influ- 
ence no  part  of  the  world  can  resist  and  whose 
result  is  the  concern  of  every  human  being  in 
the  world.  With  us  at  home  the  development  of 
a  new  national  unity  seems  a  vague  process  com- 
pared to  the  concrete  process  you  are  undergoing. 
You  are  uniting  East,  West,  North,  and  South 
in  action.  We  aim  to  support  you  with  all  our 
resources  to  make  sure  that  you  do  not  fight  in 
vain. 

[334] 


EXPEDITIONARY  FORCES  IN  FRANCE 

I  thought  you  marched  well  and  drilled  well 
when  I  last  saw  you,  but  what  I  have  seen  of  you 
to-day  gives  me  a  new  standard  of  comparison. 
The  mark  of  the  thorough  system  of  our  army  in 
France  is  upon  you.  I  feel  you  have  all  grown 
to  greater  manhood,  and  that  the  steel  of  your 
spirit  now  has  the  fighting  edge.  To  your  rela- 
tives scattered  over  the  States  I  send  the  message 
that  you  are  well  led,  and  that  you  want  for  none 
of  the  supplies  and  for  no  attention  which  safe- 
guards your  health.  Your  own  communities 
and  the  nation  as  a  whole  may  be  proud  of  your 
good  conduct  and  clean  living,  which  go  with 
clean,  hard  fighting,  and  with  the  principles  for 
which  you  fight 


[335] 


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